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THE 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 



FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD TO 1839. 



THOMAS KEIGHTLET, 

AUTHOR OF "the HISTORY OF GREECE," "HISTORY OF ROME," 
*' OUTLINES OF HISTORY," iic. 



FROM THE SECOND LONDON EDITION. 

WITH NOTES, &c., 

BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR. 

IN FIVE VOLUMES. 

VOL. II. 

NEW YORK: 

PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, 
NO. 82 CLIFF-STRBBT, 

18 4 2 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1840, by 

Harper & Brothers, 

In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of NewYork, 



CONTENTS 

OF 

THE SECOND VOLUME. 
HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET, 

CONTINUED. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

RICHARD II. (of bordeaux). 

1377-1399. 

Insurrection of the Peasantry.— Power of the Duke of Glouces- 
ter. — Kichard's Expedition to Ireland. — Murder of Gloucester. — 
The King Absolute. — Norfolk and Hereford.— Capture of the 
King; his Deposition.— WicklifFe .... Page 7 

CHAPTER IX. 

HENRY IV. (of BOLINGBROKe). 

1399-1413. 

Murder of Richard II.— Battle of Homildon.— Battle of Shrews- 
bury, — Suppression of the Insurrection.— Seizure of the Prince 
of Scotland.— Anecdotes of the Prince of Wales. — King's Death 
and Character.— The Clergy 32 

CHAPTER X. 

HENRY V. 

1413-1422. 

Sir John Oldcastle.— Henry claims the Crown of France.— Con. 
spiracy.— Invasion of France.— Battle of Agincourt.— State of 
France.— Conference of Meulant. — The Perpetual Peace. — 
Death of Henry 41 



ly CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XL 

HENRY VI. 

1422-1461. 

Affairs of France and England. — Battle of Verneuil. — Siege of 
Orleans. — Battle of the Herrings. — Joan of Arc ; her Cruel 
Death. — Losses of the English.— The King's Marriage.— Death 
of the Duke of Gloucester; of Cardinal Beaufort. — Accusation 
of Suffolk ; his Death.— Jack Cade.-The Duke of York.— 
Battle of St. Alban's.— War of the Roses.— Battle of Blore 
Heath.— York declared Heir to the Crown.— Battle of Wake- 
field ; of Mortimer's Cross Page 55 

CHAPTER XH. 

EDWARD IV. 

1461-1483. 

Battle of Towton ; of Hedgeley Moor and Hexham. — Capture 
of Henry.— Marriage of Edward.— Risings of the Peasantry. — 
Flight of Edward ; his Return. — Battle of Barnet ; of Tewkes- 
bury.— Death of Henry ; of Clarence and of the King . 85 

CHAPTER Xm. 

EDWARD V. RICHARD III. 

1483-1485. 

Parties at Court. — Imprisonment of Rivers and Grey. — Execu- 
tion of Hastings. — Jane Shore.— Dr. Shaw's Sermon. — Glou- 
cester made King.— Murder of the Princes.— Conspiracy and 
Death of Buckingham.— Richard proposes to marry his Niece.— 
Landing of Richmond.— Battle of Bosworth.— Constitution un- 
der the Plantagenets.— Religion of the Fifteenth Century 101 

CHAPTER XIV. 

STATE OF THE CONSTITUTION. 

Nature of the Constitution.— Abuses of Prerogative.— Wardship 
and Escheat. — Forest Laws. — Constables' and Marshals 
Courts. — Purveyance.— Taxation— Pardons. — Maintenance. — 
Array —Navy,— Punishment of Crime.— Religion . .115 



CONTENTS. 



HOUSE OF TUDOR. 



CHAPTER I. 

HENRY VII. 

1485-1509. 

The Sweating Sickness. — King's Marriage. — Lambert Simnell. — 
Battle of Stoke.— Coronation of the Queen. — Affairs of Brittany. 
—Perkin Warheck.— Execution of the Earl of Warwick.— Mar- 
riage and Death of Prince Arthur.— The King's Avarice.— His 
Death and Character Page 126 

CHAPTER n. 

HENRY" VIII. 

1509-1526. 

Execution of Empson and Dudley. — War with France; with 
Scotland. — Battle of Flodden. — Wolsey. — The Field of the 
Cloth of Gold. — Execution of the Duke of Buckingham. — 
Wolsey deceived by the Emperor 148 

CHAPTER HI. 

HENRY VIII. (continued). 

1527-1535. 

The Reformation. — Luther.— Henry writes against him. — Origin 
of Henry's Divorce. — Anne Boleyn. — Progress of the Divorce. 
— Cranmer. — Fall of Wolsey ; his Death.— Opinions of Univer- 
sities.— Cromwell.— Craniner made Primate.— Henry marries 
Anne Boleyn.— The Holy Maid of Kent.— Execution of Bishop 
Fisher ; of Sir T. More ; his Character . . . .168 

CHAPTER IV. 

HENRY VIII. (continued). 

1535-1538. 

Visitation of Convents.— Death of Queen Catharine. — Trial and 
Execution of Queen Anne.— Risings of the Peasantry.— Death 
of Queen Jane. — Suppression of the Monasteries. — Reginald 

Pole 201 

A2 



VI CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER V. 

HENRY VIII. (continued). 
1538-1547. 
Burning of Lambert. — Act of Six Articles.— King's Marriage with 
Anne of Cleves. — His Divorce. — Execution of Cromwell. — 
Catharine Howard. — War with France and Scotland.— Con- 
spiracy against Cranmer. — Anne Askew.— Attempt to injure the 
Queen.— Execution of Lord Surrey. — Death of the King. — Hi8 
Character Page 224 

CHAPTER VI. 

EDWARD VI. 
1547-1553. 
The Council. — Progress of the Reformation. — Invasion of Scot- 
land, and Battle of Pinkey. — Lord Seymour. — Joan Bocher. — 
Risings of the Peasantry. — Fall of Somerset. — Bonner and 
Gardiner. — The Lady Mary.— Trial and Execution of Somer- 
set. — Settlement of the Crown.— Death of the King . . 245 

CHAPTER Vn. 

MARY. 
1553-1555. 
Lady Jane Grey. — The People declare for Mary. — Trial and Ex- 
ecution of Northumberland. — Proceedings against the Reform- 
ers. — The Queen's Marriage. — Wyat's Insurrection. — Execution 
of Lady Jane, her Husband, and her Father.— Danger of the 
Princess Elizabeth. — Marriage of the Queen. — Arrival of Car- 
dinal Pole.— The Princess Elizabeth 269 

CHAPTER VHI. 

MARY (continued). 
1555-1558. 
Proceedings against the Reformers.— Martyrdom of Rogers and 
Hooper. — Proceedings against Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer. — 
Martyrdom of the last two. — Death of Gardiner. — Martyrdom 
of Cranmer. — Pole made Primate. — Battle of St. Quintin. — 
Loss of Calais. — Death of the Queen and of the Cardinal 293 



THE 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET, 

CONTINUED. 

CHAPTER VHL 

RICHARD II. (of bordeaux.)* 

1377-1399. 

Insurrection of the Peasantry.— Power of the Duke of Glouces- 
ter. — Richard's Expedition to Ireland. — Murder of Gloucester. — 
The King Absolute. — Norfolk and Hereford. — Capture of the 
King ; his Deposition.— WicklifiFe. 

Richard was only in his eleventh year when the 
death of his grandfather placed him on the throne of 
England. The principle of representation was now 
so fully established, and the memory of his father was 
so dear to the nation, that the slightest opposition to 
his succession was not to be apprehended. He was 
crowned with great solemnity on the 16th of July, at 
Westminster. The following day a council of re- 
gency was appointed ; the Duke of Lancaster, con- 
trary to expectation, offering no opposition. The wai 
with France and Castile, which still continued, made 
it necessary to convene a parliament; and its pro- 

* Authorities : Walsingham, Knighton, and Froissart. 



8 RICHARD II. [1381. 

ceedlngs show clearly the influence which the com- 
mons were gradually acquiring.* 

The events of the Avar with France at this time 
ofifer little to interest ; for Charles the Wise was too 
prudent a man to put anything at hazard. It, however, 
brought on expense; and the king Avas obliged to 
apply to his parhament for supplies. Instead of the 
old mode of granting tenths and fifteenths, it was re- 
solved to have recourse to the new expedient of a 
poll-tax of three groats a head for every person, male 
and female, of fifteen years and upward ; but, to ease 
the poor, it was directed that the aggregate sum in 
particular places should be so apportioned as to be 
levied at from one to sixty groats, according to the 
substance of the parties. The levying of this tax, 
however, gave occasion to a dangerous insurrection 
of the people in 1381. 

For centuries the condition of the inferior ranks of 
the people, throughout the greater part of Europe, 
Jhiad been that of villanage or predial bondage, some- 
what similar to what prevails at the present day in 
Russia. f But knowledge had been secretly shedding 
its light even on the low places of society ; the equal 
and beneficent spirit which the Gospel breathes had 
imperceptibly penetrated all ranks ; kings and nobles 
had been gradually emancipating their serfs ; the 
clergy, who were mostly of plebeian origin them- 
selves, as judges in the courts of law and equity, fa- 
voured emancipation, and, as religious teachers, fre- 
quently dwelt on the equably of all portions of a 
sinful race in the eyes of a just and beneficent Deity. 

* See the particulars in Lingard and in Hallam (Middle Ages, 
p. 384, et seq., Harpers' edition). 

t It is only by considering the brutishly degraded condition of 
the great mass of the people throughout Europe at this time, and 
for centuries after, and contrasting with it their present improved 
condition, that we can duly estimate the progress of modern civ- 
ilization. Much as remains to be done to complete the reforms 
yet needed, such a comparative view is full of promise, that, under 
every discouragement, the good work will go on, until the great 
principles of civil and religious freedom shall be universally ac- 
knowledged and established.— ilm. Ed. 



1381.] POLL-TAX INSURRECTION. 9 

The extent of commerce, and the consequent wealth 
of the inhabitants of towns, and their importance in 
the eyes of monarchs and nobles, had given a kind 
of elevation to all parts of the commonalty ; and even 
the rude serfs of the country felt their natural rights, 
and panted, beneath the oppression of their lords, 
after a state of freedom for which they were not, per- 
haps, yet fully qualified. This general fermentation 
had, in 1357, broken out in the atrocities of the Jac- 
querie in France ; and it now, in 1381, exhibited itself, 
though in a less appalling form, in England, where, 
since the Norman Conquest, the condition of the infe- 
rior classes had gradually deteriorated, and the de- 
scendants of the free Saxon ceorles had nearly sunk 
to the abject state of the serfs of the Continent. 

The collection of the poll-tax was first resisted in 
Essex, where the people rose under the guidance of 
a priest, who assumed the name of Jack Straw. At 
Dartford, in Kent, one of the collectors demanded the 
tax for a young girl, the daughter of a tyler. Her 
mother asserting that she was under fifteen, the bru- 
tal collector laid hold of the girl, and was proceeding 
to treat her with the greatest indignity, when her 
father came in from his work, and, raising the imple- 
ment which he happened to have in his hand, struck 
the collector dead at a blow. His neighbours ap- 
plauded and vowed to stand by him; and the sur- 
rounding villages soon joined in the common cause. 
The whole of Kent speedily rose. At Maidstone the 
people forced the archbishop's prison, and liberated a 
priest named John Ball, who was confined in it, for 
preaching against the wealth and corruption of the 
church. Wat the Tyler was now their acknowledged 
leader ; and they were joined by the Essex insurgents 
under Jack Straw. They advanced towards London ;- 
and at Blackheath, on the 10th of June, their tumul- 
tuary bands had swollen, it is said, to the number of 
one hundred thousand men. Here Ball, taking for 
his text the following rhymes, then highly populai; 
among them, 



10 RICHARD II. [1381. 

'* When Adam dalf [delved] and Ev^ span, 
Who was then the gentleman ?" 

preached on the natural equaUty of man ; and declared 
that the archbishop, the earls, barons, judges, lawyers, 
etc., must be all destroyed, and all ranks abolished, and 
that then alone all would be equally free and noble. 
The multitude loudly applauded ; and vowed that Ball 
himself should be Archbishop of Canterbury and lord 
chancellor.* The insurrection rapidly spread through 
the eastern counties. The insurgents pillaged the 
houses of the gentry, burned the court-rolls, and cut 
off the head of every justice, lawyer, and juror that 
fell into their hands. f 

While the insurgents lay at Blackheath, on the Uth 
of June, the king's mother had to pass through them 
on her return from a pilgrimage to Canterbury. By 
her address and a few kisses bestowed on the leaders, 
she passed uninjured ; and then proceeded to join her 
son in the Tower. Next morning the king went down 
in his barge to receive the petitions of the insurgents, 
who were now at Rotherhithe ; but they set up such 
shouts and cries when he appeared, that his attend- 
ants, fearing for his safety, carried him back to the 
Tower. Tyler then led his men into Southwark, 
where they broke open the Marshalsea and King's 
Bench, and liberated the prisoners ; they also de- 
stroyed the furniture and burned the records in the 
episcopal palace at Lambeth. 

Next morning, the 13th, the insurgents passed Lon- 
don bridge and entered the city, where they were join- 
ed by the populace. After regaling themselves at the 
cost of the wealthy citizens, they commenced their 
devastations. Newgate was speedily broken open, 
and its inmates were set at liberty ; the Duke of Lan- 
caster's splendid palace, the Savoy, was plundered and 
destroyed ; the Temple, with all the books and records 

* The primate was chancellor at this time. It is amusing to 
observe how men cannot divest themselves of their original ideas : 
while vowing to abolish all ranks and offices, they talked of con* 
ferring the highest on their leaders. 

t See Appendix (A). 



1381.] THE "tyler" charter. 11 

it contained, was burned. Strict orders were given that 
no man should keep any part of the phinder ; and one 
man, who had concealed a silver cup in his bosom, 
was flung with it into the Thames. The plate which 
they seized was cut into small pieces, and the precious 
stones were beaten to powder. " With whom boldest 
thou ■?" was the question put to every one whom they 
met ; and if he did not reply, " With King Richard and 
the Commons," his head was struck off. They also 
made people swear to admit no king " who was called 
John," alluding to the Duke of Lancaster. The Flem- 
ings were the chief objects of their vengeance : they 
dragged them even out of the churches and beheaded 
them. So passed this day. The next morning their 
multitudes covered Tower Hill, loudly demanding the 
heads of the chancellor and the treasurer. A herald 
then made proclamation for them to retire to Mile-end, 
where the king would meet them, and grant their de- 
mands. The ground was soon cleared ; the gates were 
opened ; the young monarch issued with a small train, 
and rode to Mile-end, followed by sixty thousand of the 
multitude. Their demands were : the abohtion of 
slavery ; liberty to buy and sell in market-towns with- 
out toll or custom ; a fixed rent of fourpence the acre 
for land, instead of the services of villanage ; and a 
general pardon. These terms were at once acceded 
to ; and thirty clerks were employed during the night 
in making copies of the charter which was granted. 
The multitude, who were mostly men of Herts and 
Essex, then returned to their homes, bearing the royal 
banner. 

While the king was at Mile-end, Tyler had burst, 
with four hundred of his men, into the Tower, and 
murdered the archbishop, the treasurer, and some 
other obnoxious persons. They forced their way 
into the apartment of the princess, and even probed 
her bed with their swords, to ascertain whether any 
one was concealed in it. She fainted, and was con- 
veyed by her attendants over the river, where she 
was joined soon after by her son. 

The king next morning rode into the city with a 



12 RICHARD II. [1381, 

train of but sixty horsemen. As he was crossing 
Smithfield, he met Tyler at the head of twenty thou- 
sand men ; who, making a sign to them to halt, rode 
boldly up to the king to confer with him. Tyler was 
observed, as they spoke, to play, as it were, with his 
dagger ; and he then laid hold of the king's bridle. 
William Walworth, the lord mayor, instantly drew a 
short sword and stabbed him in the throat : he rode 
back a few paces and fell ; and Standish, one of the 
king's esquires, despatched him. The insurgents bent 
their bows to avenge him ; when the king, with won- 
derful presence of mind, galloped up to them, crying, 
" What are ye about, my lieges 1 Tyler was a traitor. 
Come with me, I will be your leader." They followed 
him to IsHngton, whither vSir Robert Knowles soon 
came with a body of one thousand horse, to protect 
the king. They fell on their knees, suing for mercy. 
Some were for falling on and slaughtering them ; but 
the king steadily refused his consent, and directed 
them to return to their homes in peace. 

The nobility and gentry, who, in their terror, had at 
first shut themselves up in their houses and castles, 
now took courage and repaired to the king ; who, find- 
ing himself at the head of forty thousand men, in com- 
pliance with the desires of these lords (whose conduct 
justifies the severe remark of a modern historian,* that 
" the masters of slaves on such occasions seem anx- 
ious to prove that they are not of a race superior in 
any moral quality to the meanest of their bondmen"), 
issued a proclamation on the 2d of July, revoking all 
the charters he had granted. The hangman was in- 
stantly set to work: Ball, Straw, and about fifteen 
hundred others were executed. Straw, it is said, 
confessed, before his execution, that their intention 
had been to massacre all the possessioners, that is, 
beneficed clergy, and to leave none but the mendi- 
cant friars, who would suffice for all the pui-poses of 
religion, t 

* Mackintosh, i., 266, Harpers' ed. 

t We must recollect that all these details are furnished by 
Walsingham and Knighton : two inveterate enemies of the insur- 
gents. 



1383-1384.] INVASION of Scotland. 13 

The energy and presence of mind shown by a youth 
of but sixteen on this occasion, gave great hopes of 
the king; and his marriage the following year, 1382, 
with the daughter of the King of Bohemia, a lady of 
such eminent goodness and virtue that she was long 
remembered under the name of the "good Queen 
Anne," helped to augment the pleasing illusion. But 
the defects of the king's own character, and the ambi- 
tion of his uncles, gradually dispelled the hopes that 
were entertained of a prosperous reign. 

In the year 1384, when the Duke of Lancaster was 
on his return from an expedition into Scotland, the 
charges of disloyalty, which had been more than once 
made against him, were renewed; and a Carmelite 
friar put into the king's hands written proofs of a real 
or pretended conspiracy to place- him on the throne. 
Lancaster swore it was false ; and offered to prove his 
innocence by wager of battle. The friar was given in 
custody to Sir John Holland, the king's half-brother ; 
and, on the morning when he was to be produced, he 
was found hanging dead in his chamber. Some ac- 
cused his keeper of the deed, others said it was his 
own act. The Lord Zouch, whom the friar had named 
as the author of the memorial, denied all knowledge 
of it. Lancaster went over to France ; and, on his 
return, shut himself up in his castle of Pontefract, till 
the king's mother brought about a reconciliation. 
This was followed by an expedition into Scotland: 
for, as the Scots, aided by a body of French auxiha- 
ries, had crossed the borders, the king entered Scot- 
land with eighty thousand men, and laid it waste. 

During this expedition, the king made his uncles, 
the earls of Cambridge and Buckingham, dukes of 
York and Gloucester ; and Henry, son of the Duke of 
Lancaster, and Edward, son to the Duke of York, earls 
of Derby and Rutland. On the other hand, he created 
his favourite, Robert Vere earl of Oxford, marquis 
of DubUn ; and granted him the revenues of Ireland for 
life, on condition of his paying 5000 marks ($16,000) 
a year into the exchequer : while Michael de la Pole, 
the son of a London merchant, whom he had made 

Vol. IL— B 



14 RICHARD 11. [1386. 

chancellor, was created Earl of Suffolk. At the same 
time, Roger earl of March, grandson of Lionel duke 
of Clarence, was declared heir-presumptive to the 
crown. The affairs of the Spanish peninsula (where 
the Duke of Lancaster claimed the crown of Castile 
in right of his wife*) caUing him over to that country, 
Richard willingly consented to his departure, and gave 
him one half of the supply voted for the year by par- 
liament. 

But the king soon had reason to regret the absence 
of the Duke of Lancaster; for Gloucester, a man of 
strong passions and great ambition, fomented the an- 
imosity of the nobility against the favourites ; and, 
when a parliament met in 1386, on account of a men- 
aced invasion from France, both lords and commons 
united in a petition for tlie removal of the ministers. 
Richard, having vainly tried to rouse the citizens of 
London, retired to his palace at Eltham. The parlia- 
ment sent, urging their petition : he insolently replied, 
that he would not, at their desire, remove the mean- 
est scullion in his kitchen. He was, however, obliged 
to give way and dismiss his ministers, stipulating that 
none of them but Suffolk should be molested. This 
nobleman was forthwith impeached by the commons. f 
On most of the charges he was acquitted : on others 
he was found guilty ; and he was sentenced to pay 
various sums, and to be imprisoned during the royal 
pleasure. It was now proposed to go a step farther; 
and, as had been done in the times of John, his son, 
and Edward IL, to establish a council for the reform- 
ation of the state. Richard steadily refused to part 
with his power, and threatened to dissolve the parha- 
ment. The commons, to terrify him, directed the act 
of deposition of Edward IL to be produced. At length 
the king was assured, that, if he continued obstinate, 
the lords and commons would separate, and leave him 

* Lancaster and his brother, the Earl of Cambridge, married 
the two daughters and co-heiresses of Peter the Cruel. 

t This is the second instance of the impeachment of a minister 
by the commons. (See p. 298, vol. i.) It was of far more im- 
portance ihan the former. " 



1387.] POWER OF GLOUCESTER. 15 

to himself. He then gave way; and agreed to ap- 
point a commission of fourteen prelates and peers, to 
regulate the affairs of the kingdom for twelve months. 
The Duke of Gloucester was at the head of the com- 
mission, and nearly all the members of it were his 
creatures. At the end of the session, on the 28th of 
November, Richard made a solemn and open protest 
against anything done in that parliament to the preju- 
dice of the rights of the crown. 

Richard, who was certainly a prince of spirit, could 
harldly be expected to submit tamely to this virtual 
deposition. Having vainly tried, in 1387, to induce 
the sheriffs of counties to influence the next elections 
in his favour, he assembled the principal judges at 
Nottingham on the 25th of August, and put several 
queries to them respecting the legality of the late 
commission. They pronounced it to be illegal, and 
those concerned in procuring it to be traitors. They 
set their seals to this answer, and swore to keep it 
secret. The very next day, however, one of them 
betrayed it to the king's brother, the Earl of Kent, by 
whom the intelligence was conveyed to the Duke of 
Gloucester. 

The commission being to terminate on the 19th of 
November, the king entered London on the 10th, to 
be ready to resume his authority ; and he had arran- 
ged measures for taking vengeance on those who were 
obnoxious to him. But the next day he learned, to 
his consternation, that Gloucester and some other lords 
were near Highgate, at the head of forty thousand men. 
Resistance was not to be thought of. The five lead- 
ers, Gloucester, his nephew Derby, Fitzalan earl of 
Arundel, Mowbray earl of Nottingham, and Beauchamp 
earl of Warwick, came before the king in Westminster 
Hall on the 17th, and appealed {i. e., accused) of trea- 
son the Archbishop of York, the duke of Ireland, as 
Vere now was styled, the Earl of Suffolk, Sir Robert 
Tresihan,the chief-justice, and Sir Nicholas Bramber, 
late lord-mayor of London ; and, casting their gaunt- 
lets on the floor, offered to prove the charges by sin- 
gle combat. Richard replied that he would summon 



16 RICHARD II. [1388. 

a parliament, in which justice should be done ; and he 
and the appellants parted apparently on friendly terms. 
The five accused persons, knowing their destruction 
to be otherwise inevitable, sought to save themselves 
by flight. Suffolk got over to France, where he died 
soon after ; the archbishop concealed himself near 
Newcastle, Tresilian in London, and Bramber was ta- 
ken. The Duke of Ireland retired to Cheshire ; and 
having, by direction of the king, raised a body of men, 
advanced towards London ; but he was met and baf- 
fled at Radcot Bridge by the forces led by Gloucester 
and Derby ; and he fled first to Ireland, and then to the 
Low Countries, where he died. When Gloucester re- 
turned to London, a parliament met in 1388, and the 
impeachments were proceeded with. Tresilian, who 
had concealed himself in the house of an apothecary 
opposite the palace, was betrayed by a servant ; and 
that very evening he was executed at Tyburn. The 
next day Bramber shared his fate. The judges who 
had answered the king's questions were then con- 
demned to death. Their lives, however, were spared 
at the intercession of the bishops ; but they were ban- 
ished for life to different cities of Ireland. The same 
was the fate of the Bishop of Chichester, the king's 
confessor. Sir Simon Burley, Sir John Beauchamp, 
Sir James Berners, and Sir John Salisbury, were next 
impeached, as aiders of the aforesaid traitors ; and all 
were executed. Burley had been appointed by the 
Black Prince governor to his son, whose marriage 
also he had negotiated. Richard entreated Glouces- 
ter in his favour ; but he was told to leave him to his 
fate if he wished to keep his crown. The queen fell 
on her knees before the tyrant, and supplicated in 
vain : even Derby could not move his ruthless resolve. 
The only favour shown was the change of hanging for 
decapitation.* The work of blood being ended, the 
Wonderful (or, as others called it, the Merciless) Par- 
liament was dissolved on the 3d of June.f 

* The reversal of Burley's sentence in the following reign 
proves its injustice. 

■f In this year, Aug. 9, the battle of Otterburne, celebrated in the 
ballads, was fought between the Percies and Dougbs. 



1389-1396.] RICHARD IN IRELAND. 17 

Gloucester and his party held the reins of govern- 
ment for nearly twelve months longer ; but their pow- 
er was gradually crumbling away ; and, by a bold ef- 
fort, the king at once overthrew it. At a great coun- 
cil, holden after Easter, 1389, he turned suddenly to 
the Duke of Gloucester, and asked him how old he 
was. " Your highness," he replied, " is in your twen- 
ty-second year." "Then," said the king, "I must 
surely be old enough to manage my own affairs. I 
have been longer under tutors than any wards in my 
dominions. I thank you, my lords, for your past ser- 
vices, but require them no longer." No opposition 
was attempted : he appointed a new chancellor and 
treasurer; and a proclamation informed the people 
that he had resumed the government. 

During eight years the king ruled without opposi- 
tion. He seemed perfectly reconciled to his uncles 
and their friends ; and, what was very remarkable in 
those times, he remitted to his subjects some subsi- 
dies which had been granted to him. On the death of 
the good Queen Anne, in 1394, he was induced to seek 
to divert his melancholy by visiting Ireland, where, 
since the weakening of the English power by the in- 
vasion of Edward Bi-uce, the native tribes had greatly 
encroached on the British settlers, and many of these 
last had abandoned their own laws and language for 
those of the Irish. He landed at Waterford with four 
thousand men-at-arms and thirty thousand archers, a 
force not to be resisted ; and thence marched to Dub- 
lin. All the native chiefs and degenerate English sub- 
mitted, and were received to favour. Grievances were 
redressed, and oppressive officers removed. He then 
returned to London, and concluded a truce for twen- 
ty-five years with the King of France. Early in the 
next year, 1396, he was married to Isabella, the daugh- 
ter oif that monarch, a child only in her eighth year ; 
and, in the following month of January, the infant 
queen was crowned at Westminster. 

This treaty and marriage were vehemently repro- 
bated by the Duke of Gloucester ; who, dilating on the 
glories of the late rei§n, spoke sneeringly of the luxuiy 
B2 



18 RICHARD 11. [1397. 

and inactivity of the present. He had never cordially 
cultivated the good- will of the king, who, for his part, 
had never forgiven his former conduct. With his two 
other uncles and their sons, Richard was now on the 
best terms. York had never offended him, and age 
had chilled the fire of Lancaster. The king had like- 
wise lately obliged him, by legitimating his offspring 
by Catharine Swynford (the widow of a knight whom 
his duchess had employed to educate her children), 
and who, during the life of the duchess, had borne him 
three sons and a daughter.* The eldest of these chil- 
dren was created Earl of Somerset; but it was ex- 
pressly stated in the act of legitimation, that they were 
to have no claim to the crown. Richard therefore 
felt himself strong enough, in 1397, to take his long- 
projected vengeance on Gloucester. He went him- 
self in person, on the 12th of .July, to the duke's castle 
at Fleshy. Gloucester and his family came out to 
receive him ; when the king directed the earl-marshal, 
Nottingham, to arrest him and convey him to the 
Tower. But, when they reached the Thames on their 
way, the earl hurried his prisoner on board of a ves- 
sel which lay ready, and conveyed him to Calais, of 
which place he was governor. The earls of Arundel 
and Warwick were arrested in the same treacherous 
manner, and confined in different castles. To quiet 
the people, proclamation was made that all had been 
done with the assent of the dukes of Lancaster and 
York, their sons and other nobles. At Nottingham, a 
few days after, the king made some of these noblemen 
appeal the duke and his two friends of treason ; and, 
in about three weeks, Sir William Rickhill, one of the 
justices of the Common Pleas, was called up in the 
middle of the night, and ordered to repair instantly to 
Calais. On his arrival there, a commission was giv- 
en him to interrogate the Duke of Gloucester, whom 
he had supposed to be dead ; a report to that effect 
having been spread. He used the precaution of hav- 
ing two witnesses present at his interview with the 

* They were named Beaufort, from a castle of that name in 
France, where they were born. 



1397.] 



MURDER OF GLOUCESTER. 10 



duke, and he advised him to give his answer in wri- 
ting, and to keep a copy. Gloucester gave him what 
he called his confession, and bade him return in the 
morning ; but Rickhill was not permitted to see him 
any more. 

Richard had, in the mean time, on the 17th of Sep- 
tember, returned with a strong force to London. The 
sheriffs had taken care to have a parliament, such as 
he required, returned. All pardons granted to the ac- 
cused were revoked. They were appealed of having 
forced the king to assent to the commission of regen- 
cy in 1387, and for their subsequent acts. Arundel 
pleaded both a general and a special pardon ; but his 
defence was not admitted; and he was condemned 
and beheaded that very day. Warwick was also con- 
demned to death ; but the sentence was commuted to 
exile in the Isle of Man ; the primate, Arundel's broth- 
er, was banished ; Lord Cobham was exiled to Jersey ; 
and Lord Mortimer, who had taken refuge with the 
native Irish, was outlawed. Orders had been sent to 
the earl-marshal to bring over the Duke of Glouces- 
ter, to answer the charges made against him. His 
answer came, that he could not do so, as the duke had 
died in prison. The lords-appellant demanded judg- 
ment, and the commons petitioned to the same effect : 
the duke was then declared a traitor, and his property 
confiscated. Next day his confession, which had been 
taken by Sir William Rickhill, was read in parliament. 

The very opportune death of the duke is certainly 
somewhat mysterious ; such deaths in those times 
being rarely natural. It was never supposed that he 
destroyed himself: Froissart was told that he was 
strangled. Hall, a servant of the governor, made 
confession, in the next reign, that he was present when 
the duke was smothered between two beds ; and, 
though doubt has been thrown on these accounts, the 
probability, we might perhaps say the certainty, still 
is, that the duke was murdered by order of the king 
his nephew. 

Having thus gratified his vengeance m violation of 
all law and justice, the king proceeded to secure him- 



20 RICHARD II. [1397. 

self, for the future, in the exercise of his power. To 
attach the princes, he made his cousins Derby and 
Rutland dukes of Hereford and Albemarle, and his 
brothers Kent and Huntingdon dukes of Surrey and 
Exeter ; Nottingham was created Duke of Norfolk ; 
Somerset Marquis of Dorset ; the lords of Despenser, 
Neville, Percy, and William Scroop, earls of Glou- 
cester, Westmoreland, Worcester, and Wiltshire. To 
give the greater security to all concerned in the late 
proceedings, the peers and commons were made to 
swear, at the end of the session, to maintain all the 
acts of the present parliament. A subsidy on wool 
was granted to the king for life. A standing commis- 
sion of twelve peers and six commoners was then 
appointed, who were to exercise all the powers of 
the legislature. " The king now," says Froissart, 
"began to rule more fiercely than before." He main- 
tained a force of ten thousand archers ; none, high or 
low, dared to oppose his will ; his ministers and fa- 
vourites encouraged him in all his excesses ; and he 
passed his days in feasting and revelry, and in the 
enjoyment of low and trivial pleasures. The people 
murmured at the proceedings of the late parliament ; 
and many of the nobles, when they calmly reviewed 
the dissimulation and treachery of the king in the 
case of his uncle, and the contempt of law and justice 
which he had exhibited in that affair, felt rather un- 
certain of their own safety. 

Of the lords-appellant, in the tenth year of the king, 
1387, Hereford and Norfolk alone remained. In the 
month of December, the latter overtook the former on 
the road from Brentford to London ; and, as they rode 
along, he said to him (as reported by Hereford), "We 
are like to be undone." " For what ]" " For the af- 
fair of Radcotbridge." " How can that be, since he 
has pardoned us V " Nevertheless, our fate will be 
like that of others before us : he will annul the rec^ 
ord." Norfolk then proceeded to declare, that, to 
his knowledge, Surrey, Wiltshire, and SaUsbury were 
sworn to destroy them and some others ; and added, 
that ho could not trust the king's oath. This conver- 



1398.] NORFOLK AND HEREFORD. 21 

satioii, it is easy to conceive how, reached the ears 
of the king. He sent for Hereford, and charged him, 
on his allegiance, to repeat it before the council. On 
the opening of the next parliament, on the 30th of 
January, 1398, Hereford, who had already obtained a 
full pardon, appeared as the prosecutor of Norfolk. 
This nobleman, who had not attended parliament, 
surrendered on proclamation ; and, before the king at 
Oswaldstre, he denied the charge, and denounced the 
accuser as a liar and a false traitor. Richard ordered 
them both into custody ; and, as no witnesses could 
be produced, it was determined, by a court of chivalry 
held at Windsor, that the decision should be left to 
the judgment of God, by wager of battle, at Coven- 
try, on the 16th of September. On that day the 
combatants appeared in the lists, in the presence of 
the king, the committee of parliament, and a great 
multitude of the people. The lances were in rest, 
and the combat was about to begin, when the king 
3ung down his warder [or truncheon], and forbade 
the battle. The two dukes retired to their seats, 
while the king engaged in consultation. At length 
the royal pleasure was announced. To prevent fu- 
ture quarrels, the Duke of Hereford was to quit the 
kingdom, and remain ten years in exile ; Norfolk was 
to remain in exile for life in Germany, Hungary, or 
Bohemia, and to go as a pilgrim to the Holy Land ; 
and his lands were to be taken into the king's hands, 
to pay his debts to the crown, £1000 ($4800) a year 
being reserved to him. As a favour, both were al- 
lowed to appoint attorneys, to receive any inheritan- 
ces that might fall to them during their exile. Here- 
ford went to France, Norfolk visited the Holy Land, 
and on his return died of a broken heart at Venice. 

Richard was now, in fact, an absolute monarch : he 
had oppressed or terrified all his opponents ; the sub- 
sidy granted for life relieved him from the necessity 
of meeting his parliaments, while the standing com- 
mittee was ready to make any ordinances he pleased. 
But his exalted position was unstable. He had irre- 
trievably lost the affections of the people by forced 



122 RICHARD II. [1399. 

loans and other acts of oppression, and circumstances 
soon led them to turn their thoughts to his cousin 
Henry, the banished Duke of Hereford. On the 
death of his father in 1399, Henry at once assumed 
the title of Duke of Lancaster ; but, when he claimed 
the estates. Richard, asserting that exile, like out- 
lawry, rendered incapable of inheriting property, 
seized them to his own use ; and the council pro- 
nounced the patents granted to him and Norfolk ille- 
gal and void. This act of flagrant injustice was 
Richard's ruin. The patience of the nation was now 
exhausted ; the friends of Henry were active ; plans 
of insurrection were formed, and the great lords were 
sounded. As if to hasten his destruction, the infatu- 
ated monarch, while the political horizon boded a 
tempest, set out on another expedition to Ireland, to 
avenge the deatli of the Earl of March, who had been 
slain by the native Irish. Having made the Duke of 
York regent, he sailed from Milford, and landed at Wa- 
terford on the 31st of May. 

Shortly after, Henry, accompanied by the exiled 
primate and a few attendants, sailed with three small 
vessels from Vannes in Brittany, and landed at Ra- 
venspur in Yorkshire on the 4th of July. He was 
immediately joined by the earls of Northumberland 
and Westmoreland, to whom he declared, on oath, 
that he only sought to recover the honours and es- 
tates which had belonged to his father. The regent, 
when he heard of his landing, summoned the vassals 
of the crown to St. Albans. A numerous army as- 
sembled ; but, finding the leaders mostly disinchned 
to act against Henry, who appeared only to seek his 
right, he turned and moved towards Bristol, whither 
the Earl of Wiltshire, Sir John Bussy, and Sir Henry 
Green, members of the committee, who had been left 
in charge of the young queen, had already fled. 
Henry soon reached London, at the head of sixty 
thousand men ; and, after a delay of a few days, fol- 
lowed the regent. An interview between the uncle 
and nephew took place in the church of the Castle of 
Berkeley, which ended in their united forces of one 



1399.] CAPTURE OF THE KING. 23 

hundred thousand men appearing before the Castle 
of Bristol, the regent having been either intimidated 
or deceived. The castle surrendered ; and Wiltshire, 
Bussy, and Green, as was usual in such cases, Avere 
executed without even the form of a trial. The Duke 
of York then remained at Bristol, while Henry pro- 
ceeded to Chester on the 8th of August. 

The state of the weather had hitherto prevented 
intelligence from being conveyed to the king. When 
he heard of what had occurred, he sent the Earl of 
Salisbury over, with as many men as the ships in 
Dublin could carry, while he himself led the rest 
of his forces to Waterford. Salisbury landed at Con- 
way, where, by summoning the Welshmen to his 
standard, he assembled a respectable force ; but, as 
the king did not appear, they dispersed after waiting 
for a fortnight. Richard at length, on the 5th of Au- 
gust, landed at Milford with several thousand men ; 
but, when he arose on the second morning and look- 
ed out of his window, he saw that the greater part 
had already deserted. He held a council with his 
friends. Some advised that he should fly to Bor- 
deaux ; but the Duke of Exeter strongly objected to 
this course, and proposed that they should proceed tft 
join the army at Conway. This was agreed to ; and 
in the night the king, disguised as a priest, his brothers 
Exeter and Surrey, the Bishop of Carlisle, and some 
others, stole away and set out for Conway ; but here 
they found only Salisbury and a hundred men. It 
was then resolved, on the 9th, that Surrey and Exeter 
should repair to Henry, and leam what were his in- 
tentions. They met him at Chester. Surrey was 
instantly thrown into confinement, and Exeter was 
induced to lay aside the hart, the royal badge, and as- 
sume the rose, that of Henry. To secure the person 
of the king, Northumberland was sent with 500 men- 
at-arms and 1000 archers ; but these he was not to let 
be seen, lest Richard should put to sea. 

The earl, having secured the castles of Flint and 
Rhuddlan, and placed his men under a rock a few 
miles from the latter, advanced to Conway with only 



24 RICHARD II. [1399. 

five attendants. When admitted to the king's pres- 
ence on the 18th, he delivered a letter from Exeter, 
declaring that full credit might be given to the offers 
he might make. These were, that Richard should 
promise to govern by lavr; that Exeter, Surrey, 
Salisbury, and the Bishop of Carlisle should stand 
their trial for having advised the assassination of the 
Duke of Gloucester ; and that Henry should be made 
grand justiciary, as his ancestors had been. These 
terms being granted, Henry would come to Flint, ask 
pardon on his knees, and accompany the king to Lon- 
don. Richard accepted the terms, privately assuring 
his friends that he would stand by them, and take am- 
ple vengeance on his and their enemies. " Fair sirs," 
said he, " we will grant it to him, for I see no other 
way. But I swear to you, that, whatever assurance 
I may give him, he shall surely be put to a bitter 
death ; and, doubt it not, no parliament shall be held 
at Westminster. As soon as I have spoken with 
Henry, I will summon the men of Wales, and make 
head against him ; and, if he and his friends be dis- 
comfited, they shall die. Some of then) I will flay 
alive." 

Mass was performed; Northumberland swore on 
the host to observe the conditions ; he departed, and, 
after dinner, the king set out for Flint. On coming to 
a steep declivity close to the sea, he dismounted, and 
began to walk down. Suddenly he stopped and cried, 
" I am betrayed ! God of Paradise, aid me ! See 
ye not banners and pennons below in the valley 1" 
Northumberland now joined him, but affected igno- 
rance. " If I thought you could betray me," said the 
king, "it is not too late to return." "You cannot," 
said the earl, catching hold of the bridle ; " I have 
promised to convey you to the Duke of Lancaster." 
By this time one hundred lancers and two hundred 
archers had come up ; and Richard, seeing escape im- 
possible, said, " May the God on whom you laid your 
hand reward you and your accomplices at the last 
day !" Then turning to his companions, " We are 
betrayed," said he ; " but remember that our Lord alsQ 



1399.] DEPOSITION OF RICHARD. 25 

was sold, and delivered into the hands of his ene- 
mies." 

At Flint, the king, when left with his friends, re- 
proached himself bitterly, it is said, with his former 
lenity to the man who had now risen up against him. 
Three times he averred he had pardoned him : once 
when even his own father would have put him to 
death. He passed a sleepless night. On the morn- 
ing of the 19th he ascended the tower, and beheld 
Henry's army of eighty thousand men advancing. 
He shuddered and wept. After dinner he was sum- 
moned down to the court to meet the duke, who, ad- 
vancing (armed all save his head), bent his knee. 
" Fair cousin of Lancaster," said the king, " you are 
welcome." " My lord," replied the duke, " I am come 
before my time ; but I will show you the reason. 
Your people complain that for twenty or two-and- 
twenty years you have ruled them rigorously ; but, 
if it please God, I will help you to govern better." 
"Fair cousin, since it pleaseth you, it pleaseth me 
well," replied the king. Henry then spoke to all but 
the Earl of Sahsbury. The king's horses were forth- 
with ordered ; Richard and Salisbury were mounted 
on two sorry jades ; and thus, amid the sound of 
trumpets and shouts of the soldiers, they followed the 
duke to Chester. Here the king was made to issue a 
proclamation for assembling a parliament. Henry 
then conducted him towards London. At Lichfield, 
on the 24th, the captive monarch attempted to escape, 
by letting himself down from his window ; but he 
was taken in the garden. On reaching London on 
the 31st, he was placed in the Tower.* 

Henry's design on the crown was now no longer 
concealed. He wished to cause Richard to abdicate 
voluntarily ; and, for this purpose, assailed him with 
both promises and threats. The day before the par- 
liament met, a deputation waited on the king, and 
reminded him of a promise he had made at Conway 
to resign the crown ; and, on his expressing his will. 

* The preceding narrative has been given by Turner and Lin- 
gard, from the manuscript accounts of two eye-witnesses. 
Vol. H.—C 



26 RICHARD II. [1399. 

ingness so to do, he was handed a paper, in which he 
was made to absolve his subjects from their allegi- 
ance, to renounce the royal authority, and to swear 
that he would never act, or suffer others to act, in op- 
position to this resignation. He read it, we are told, 
with a cheerful countenance ; and added that, if he 
were to choose a successor, it would be his cousin of 
Lancaster there present, to whom he then handed his 
ring.* 

Next day, the 29th of September^ the two houses 
met in Westminster Hall. The throne stood empty, 
covered with cloth of gold. Henry sat on his seat 
beside it. Richard's act of resignation was read, 
amid the shouts of the attendant multitude. The 
coronation-oath was next read ; then followed thirty- 
three articles of impeachment against Richard, whose 
deposition was voted unanimously ; and eight com- 
missioners, mounting a tribunal, pronounced the sen- 
tence. Then Henry rose ; and, making the sign of 
the cross on his forehead and breast, thus spoke : 
" In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I, 
Henry of Lancaster, challenge this realm of England, 
as I am descended by right line of blood from the 
good lord King Henry HL,f and, through that right, 
that God of his grace hath sent me, with help of my 
kin and of ray friends, to recover it : the which realm 
was in point to be undone for default of government, 
and undoing of the good laws." His claim was at 
once admitted ; he produced the ring of Richard ; the 
primate then took him by the hand, and led him to 
the throne ; on the steps he knelt and prayed ; the 
two archbishops seated him on the throne. The 
primate briefly addressed the assembly. Henry then 

* Such is the account entered on the rolls of parliament ; but, 
as the entry was made in the reign of Henry, we may fairly doubt 
its accuracy. 

t Hardynge, a contemporary chronicler, says that he had often 
heard the Earl of Northumberland assert that John of Gaunt had 
forged a chronicle, to prove that Edmund (from whom he was 
descended in the female line), and not Edward I., was the eldest 
son of Henry HI., but that he liad been set aside on account of hia 
deformity. Henry seems here to allude to that story. 



1399.] DEPOSITION OF RICHARD. 27 

rose and gave thanks to all, assuring them he would 
disturb the rights of property of no man ; and, having 
directed the parliament to meet again in six days, 
and appointed new officers of the crown, he retired to 
the palace. 

Such was the mode in which the grandson of Ed- 
ward III. was deprived of his throne. Far from us 
be the remotest thought of extenuating the baseness 
and treachery of Northumberland and other lords, or 
of justifying the ambition of the Duke of Lancaster; 
but truth compels us to declare, that Richard was re- 
jected of the people, who saw no refuge from tyranny 
but in depriving him of his power. That his depo- 
sition was the act of the nation is not to be doubted, 
for no one rose on his side ; and the means of Lan- 
caster were feeble in themselves, and could have 
achieved nothing in opposition to the wishes of a 
majority of the people. We must therefore regard 
this event as similar to a much more famous one, 
which took place about three centuries later, and to 
be justified on the same grounds ; and therefore view, 
in the house of Lancaster, a line of rightful princes. 

The deposed monarch was only in his thirty-fourth 
year. His features were feminine, his manners ab- 
rupt ; he passionately loved show and parade, and was 
devoted to pleasure. At the same time, he was arbi- 
trary and tyrannical ; and the deep dissimulation with 
which he for so many years nourished and concealed 
his projects of revenge on his uncle and others, and 
the tiger-ferocity with which he sprang to vengeance 
when he saw his time come, almost destroy all sym- 
pathy for his own unhappy fate. 

In the sixteenth year of this prince was passed the 
important statute of PrcBmunire. By this, all persons 
bringing into the kingdom papal bulls for translations 
of bishops and other purposes, were to forfeit their 
goods and chattels, and be imprisoned for life. This 
act received a very large inteipretation from the 
judges, and proved of great service in checking the 
papal usurpations. 



28 RICHARD 11. 

A spirit of innovation, or reform in religion, was at 
work at this time in England ; and John Wickliffe, 
the precursor, or pioneer of those who overthrew the 
dominion of the papacy, flourished in the reigns of 
Edward and Richard. We will give a brief account of 
this extraordinary man, and his labours and opinions. 

Wickliffe was born in 1324. He graduated at Ox- 
ford, v/here, from his great knowledge of Scripture, 
he acquired the title of the Gospel Doctor. He was 
also perfectly skilled in the scholastic philosophy 
then in vogue. He first appeared as an author in 
135G, when he put forth a tract, in which he found the 
moral cause of the great plague, with which Europe 
had just been afflicted, in the vices and corruption of 
the church. Four years later he engaged in a con- 
troversy with those pests of society (as they have 
always proved), the Mendicant orders. The insolence, 
the rapacity, the shameless falsehood of these men, 
had passed all bounds. They swarmed over the 
whole country, "as thick as motes in the sonne 
beme ;" they everywhere disparaged the secular cler- 
gy and the monks, whose revenues they frequently 
diverted to themselves. As the universities suffered 
much from their artifices, that of Oxford testified its 
gratitude for the exertions of Wickliffe, by presenting 
him with a living of some value ; and he shortly after 
was made warden of Baliol College. He was then made 
head of Canterbury Hall by primate Islep, its founder ; 
but he was deprived by Langham, Islep's successor. 
Wickliffe appealed to the pope, who decided, as might 
be expected, against him ; and the king, on receiving 
a present of two hundred marks ($620) from the 
monks of Canterbury, in whose favour the decision 
had been made, confirmed it. Wickliffe appeared as 
the champion of the crown and parliament in the 
dispute with the pope about the tribute yielded by 
John, and triumphantly refuted the arguments of the 
papal advocates. In 1372 he obtained a doctor's de- 
gree, and the professorship of divinity ; and in 1374 
he was one of the commissioners sent to Bruges to 
treat with the papal ministers on the subject of provis- 



WICKLIFFE. 20 

ions. On his return he was presented by the crown 
with a prebendal stall in the diocese of Worcester, and 
with the rectory of Lutterworth, in Leicestershire. 

Wicklifte had returned from Bruges, convinced, as 
he says, that the pope was " the most cursed of clip- 
pers and purse-kervers ;" and he went on fearlessly 
in his exposures of the papal corruptions. The heads 
of the church thought they could no longer safely re- 
main silent ; and he was therefore summoned to ap- 
pear before the convocation at St. Paul's. On the 
appointed day, the 19th of February, 1377, he came, 
accompanied by his patron the Duke of Lancaster, 
and by Lord Henry Percy, the earl-marshal. An 
altercation took place between these noblemen and 
Courteney bishop of London, in which the advantage 
of temper and decorum was clearly on the side of the 
prelate ; and the citizens, who disliked the duke, es- 
pousing the cause of their bishop, made an uproar, 
which caused the assembly to be broken up. Next 
day the mob went to the duke's palace, the Savoy, 
reversed his arms, and murdered a priest whom they 
took for the earl-marshal. 

The pope now fulminated four bulls against Wick- 
liffe ; and the next year, 1378, he had to appear at 
Lambeth before the papal delegates. But the Lon- 
doners assembled in great numbers, and even broke 
into the chapel where they were sitting, menacing 
them with destruction if anything befell the reformer; 
and a message came from the young king's motlier, 
the " Fair Maid of Kent," desiring them not to pro- 
ceed in the business. WickUffe delivered a paper 
explanatory of his sentiments, in which he so envel- 
oped them in scholastic jargon, that his judges affect- 
ed to be satisfied of his orthodoxy, and dismissed him. 
He returned to his rectory ; the great schism in the 
papacy succeeded; and the court of Rome had no 
leisure to attend to him. He therefore went on ex- 
posing its errors ; and at length had the hardihood to 
assail its palladium, the doctrine of the real corporeal 
presence. The Duke of Lancaster, in dismay at his 
temerity, now abandoned him ; and he was summou- 
02 



30 RICHARD II. 

ed before the convocation at Oxford in 1382, where 
he maintained his opinions. A mandate was obtained 
from the king, banishing him from that miiversity; 
and he retired to Lutterworth, where he died of paral- 
ysis, on the last day of the year 1384. Thirty years 
after, by a decree of the council of Constance, his 
remains were taken up and burned, and cast into the 
adjacent stream named the Swift. 

Wiekhffe arrived at the truth on most points when 
once he had the courage to search the Scriptures for 
himself. His discoveries, like those of all independ- 
ent inquirers, were of course gradual : hence we must 
expect to find in his writings, as in those of others 
who, by patient inquiry, have endeavoured to extri- 
cate themselves out of the labyrinth of error, imper- 
fect views and even contradictions, bold assertions 
and unguarded expressions, poured out in the first fer- 
vour of discovery, but softened and restricted on cool- 
er consideration. This renders it difficult to state, 
with any certainty, what his real opinions on every 
point were ; and the difficulty is increased by the cir- 
cumstance that only a portion of his works have been 
printed.* 

Two of the principal doctrines of the papal church 
are those of Merits and Transubstantiation : in oppo- 
sition to the former, Wiekhffe held the doctrine of 
justification by faith only; though, perhaps, not in 
such strong terms as some subsequent reformers have 
done ; and on the latter point he seems to have agreed 
with the present Church of England in denying a 
bodily, but acknowledging a spiritual presence in the 
sacramental elements. To most of the other erro- 
neous doctrines then inculcated, rather than shock 
prejudice by denying them, he tried to give a rational 
sense ; but against pardons, indulgences, and excom- 
munications, his invectives were trumpet-toned. View- 
ing with the Albigenses, with Dante, Petrarca, and 

♦ The Germans have printed all the works and letters of their 
great reformer, Luther. It is not to the credit of England that 
those of ker reformer should still remain in manuscript. 



WICKLIFFE. 31 

Other opponents of the Church of Rome, the pope 
as anti-Christ, he unsparingly appHed that and simi- 
lar terms to him and his supporters ; and, as his was 
an age of coarseness and plain speaking, his language, 
as well as that of his adversaries, frequently passes 
the limits set to controversy by the decorum of the 
present day. 

In opposition to the claims of Rome, Wicklifife was 
strenuous in upholding the authority of the state over 
all orders of men. Tithes he regarded as alms be- 
stowed on the church ; and he held that the state was 
justified in withholding them, if the clergy neglected 
their duty. Perhaps he went even farther; and 
thought that, in such case, the individual layman 
might refuse tithes and dues. His own retention of 
a valuable living till his death is, we think, a sufficient 
proof that he did not consider that the clergy should 
derive their only support from voluntary offerings. 
Still, his language on this point was ambiguous, and 
very liable to perversion. It was equally so on an- 
other : the right of wicked men to their temporal pos- 
sessions ; and Wickliffe has been charged with hold- 
ing the doctrine of dominion being founded in grace. 
Yet here again the inference is belied by his hfe and 
conduct ; and his language, if rightly understood, is 
perfectly innocent, and far less strong than that of 
even Augustine on the same subject. It is, however, 
not impossible that, as is asserted, these principles of 
Wickliffe, being misunderstood, may have been used 
at the time of the rising of the peasantry to justify 
the excesses they were urged to commit. 

Following the maxim that we may learn from an 
enemy, Wickliffe sent his Poor Priests, as he styled 
them, as itinerant preachers through the kingdom ; 
imitating in this his foes the friars. His doctrines 
were thus widely spread, and were embraced by num- 
bers of both sexes. His followers, who were re- 
marked for the purity and even austerity of their 
morals, were named Lollards.* 

• It is said, from the Low Dutch lollen or lallen, " to sing." 



32 HENRY IV. [1399. 

But Wickliffe gave a still deeper wound to the cor- 
ruptions of the Romish Church, by translating the 
Bible into English, and thus enabling even the un- 
learned to see how repugnant to the Word of God 
were many of her doctrines and practices. 



CHAPTER IX. 

HENRY IV. (of BOLINGBROKE).* 

1399-1413. 

Murder of Riclmrd TI.— Battle of Homildon.— Battle of Shrews- 
bury.— Suppression of the Insurrection.— Seizure of the Prince 
of Scotland.— Anecdotes of the Prince of Wales. — King's Death 
and Character.— The Clergy. 

That Henry of Lancaster was the choice of the na- 
tion is an undeniable fact. The true heir of the throne 
was the Earl of March ; but he was a child, only seven 
years old, and not a voice was raised in his favour. 
So little fear had Henry of his claims, that he con- 
tented himself Avith holding him and his brother in an 
honourable confinement at Windsor. 

When parhament met, the titles of Prince of Wales, 
Duke of Cornwall, Guiemie, &c., were conferred on 
Henry's eldest son : an indirect way of acknowledg- 
ing the justice of the king's title. The acts of the 
twenty-first year of Richard were repealed, and those 
of his eleventh year were affirmed. The lords ap- 
pellant against the Duke of Gloucester and his friends 
were deprived of the titles and estates bestowed on 
them on that account. Future appeals of treason 
were prohibited, as also were delegations of the pow- 
ers of parliament to a committee. It was likewise 
forbidden, under heavy penalties, for any one but the 
king to give hveries. Towards the close of the ses- 

* Authorities : Walsingham, Otterburne, Monstrelet. 



1400.] DEATH OF RICHARD II. 33 

sion, the primate having previously enjoined all the 
lords to strict secrecy, the Earl of Northumberland 
delivered a message from the king, requiring them to 
say what should be done with the deposed monarch, 
whose life the king was resolved to preserve. They 
replied, that he should be placed in sure ward, in a 
place where there should be no concourse of people, 
under trusty officers ; and that none of his friends 
should be admitted to him. The king then came to 
the house on the 24th of October, and passed this sen- 
tence on his unhappy predecessor, whose fate, it was 
evident, was now sealed. 

How long that fate might have been delayed, had 
no conspiracy been formed in his favour, it is hard to 
say. But five of the lords appellant had agreed among 
themselves to invite the king to a tournament at Ox- 
ford, there to seize him, and to proclaim Richard. 
Rutland, however, who was one of them, proved a 
traitor. It is said, indeed, that his father, the Duke 
of York, insisting on seeing a letter which he had re- 
ceived, he, finding concealment impossible, went and 
revealed the whole to the king. The conspirators, 
who had altered their plan, on the 4th of January, 
1400, seized the castle of Windsor; but Henry, warn- 
ed by Rutland, had left it and gone to London, where 
he proclaimed them as traitors, and commenced a 
levy of troops. They retired to the west, proclaim- 
ing Richard as they went. At Cirencester, where 
they lay the first night, the people rose under their 
mayor and attacked the quarters of the earls of Kent 
and Salisbury, whom they forced to surrender, and 
beheaded them the next night. The same fate befell 
the lords Lumley and Despenser at Bristol ; and the 
Earl of Huntingdon falling into the hands of the late 
Duke of Gloucester's tenants at Fleshy, was put to 
death by them. The death of the deposed monarch 
soon followed. The lords had risen in the first week 
of January ; and, before the end of the month, his 
death at Pontefract Avas announced. He had refused 
food, it was said, when he heard of the death of his 
brothers Kent and Huntingdon. To this, however, 



34 HENRY IV. [1402-1403. 

few gave credit : the general opinion was, that he had 
been starved to death by order of Henry, and that he 
had hngered for fifteen days. Another account says, 
that Sir Piers of Exton came from London with seven 
assistants to murder him. Richard, when they en- 
tered his room, being aware of their design, sprang 
forward and snatched a battle-axe from one, with 
which he killed some of them ; but Exton brought 
him to the ground by a blow on the back of the head, 
and then with a second blow despatched him. The 
body was brought to London and exposed at St. 
Paul's, with the lower part of the face uncovered ; 
which proved that Richard was dead, but nothing 
more. Henry attended the obsequies in person at 
St. Paul's ; and then the corpse was interred at Lang- 
ley.* 

To set his own spirit and activity in opposition to 
the inertness of his predecessor, Henry summoned 
the military tenants to his standard; and, marching 
to the Tyne, sent to claim the homage of the King of 
Scotland. On meeting with a refusal, he advanced to 
Edinburgh; but he did not waste and destroy the 
country. The Scots would give no opportunity of 
fighting, and want of supplies forced him to retire. 
A border-war was kept up, the principal event of 
which was the battle of Homildon or Humbledown, 
in 1402. The Earl of Douglas having passed the 
borders, at the head of ten thousand men, to ravage 
the northen counties, the Earl of Northumberland 
and his son Henry Percy, named Hotspur, assembled 
their troops to intercept him on his return. When 
they met, on the 14th of September, the Scots occu- 
pied the hill of Homildon, and the English an opposite 
eminence. The English archers descended into the 
valley and won the victory, while the men-at-arms 
stood looking on. Douglas himself, and many nobles 
and knights, were made prisoners. 

The very next year, 1403, strange as it may seem, 
Northumberland took up arms against the man whom 
he had aided to seize the crown. Whatever the real 

* See Lingard, iv., 283. 



1403.] INSURRECTION OF THE WELSH. 3S 

cause may have been, the occasion was as follows. 
There was a gentleman in Wales named Owen Glen- 
dour, or of Glendourdy, descended from its ancient 
princes. He had received a legal education in Eng. 
land, and had been in the service of the Earl of Arun- 
del and the late king. Lord Grey de Ruthyn, a rela- 
tive of Henry's, seized some of Glendour's land which 
lay contiguous to his own. The Welshman applied to 
parliament ; but, getting no redress, he took advantage 
of the king's absence in Scotland to right himself by 
a strong hand. Owen was declared an outlaw ; and, 
in return, he assumed the sovereignty of Wales. His 
countrymen, who were studying or labouring in Eng- 
land, provided arms and flocked to him ; and the be- 
lief that he was versed in magic arts augmented his 
influence. The king thrice led an army in person into 
Wales ; and thrice he had to retire, baffled by the 
weather, the country, and the skill of Glendour. Lord 
Grey and Sir Edmund Mortimer were each defeated 
and made captives in 1402. The king, his son, and 
the Earl of Arundel invaded Wales at three different 
points ; but the heavens seemed to fight for the cham- 
pions of independence, as tremendous rains forced the 
invaders to retire ; and Henry himself actually ascribed 
his ill-success to the magic of Glendour. He then 
gave permission to the relatives of Lord Grey to ran- 
som him ; but he refused those of Mortimer when 
they applied for the same favour. 

This, we are told, irritated Hotspur, who was mar- 
ried to Mortimer's sister. His father and his uncle, 
the Earl of Worcester, shared in his discontent ; and, 
on their applying for advice to Scrope, archbishop 
of York, the prelate urged them to proclaim the 
rightful heir, and levy war on Henry as an usurper.- 
A secret confederacy was formed with Douglas, to 
whom they gave his liberty, and with Owen Glen- 
dour, who is said to have given his daughter in mar- 
riage to Mortimer. Northumberland having fallen 
sick. Hotspur, joined by Douglas, led his forces to- 
wards Wales ; and, when his uncle came up with his 
troops in Cheshire, they put forth a manifesto, accu» 



36 HENRY IV. [1403. 

sing the king of wasting the pubhc treasure, and allow- 
ing his favourites to exclude the great lords from ac- 
cess to him. Henry, who was on his way to the 
north, replied, that the greater part of the late sup- 
plies had been paid to the Percies themselves, and of- 
fered them a safe-conduct to come and expose their 
griefs. At Burton-on-Trent he learned the route of 
the rebels ; and, turning westward, he entered Shrews- 
bury just as they came in sight of it. Hotspur halted 
at Hartlefield ; whence he sent a defiance to the king, 
calhng him false and perjured for having violated all 
the engagements made on his return to England, and 
having usui*ped the crown. Henry, unable to refute 
the charges, replied that he had no time for writing, 
and that the sword should decide. 

Next morning, the 21st of July, the two armies, 
each about fourteen thousand men, were drawn out. 
The king sent the Abbot of Shrewsbury with propo- 
sals of peace ; but, by the influence of Worcester, they 
were rejected. The adverse cries of " St. George !" 
and " Esperance Percy !" then rose ; the archers on 
both sides poured in their fatal hail of arrows ; Hot- 
spur and Douglas, each with thirty followers, plunged 
into the centre of the English, seeking the king ; the 
Earl of Stafford, Sir Walter Blount, and two others, 
all of whom wore the royal arms to deceive the ene- 
my, were slain ; and the Prince of Wales was wounded 
in the face. Hotspur and Douglas now attempted to 
force their way back ; but a chance arroAV pierced the 
brain of the former, and the latter was made a prison- 
er. After a conflict of three hours, the insurgents 
fled. More than a third of the royal army was slain 
or wounded, but the loss of the rebels was much 
greater. Worcester, Lord Kinderton, and Sir Rich- 
ard Vernon, who were among the prisoners, were ex- 
ecuted as traitors ; but Douglas was treated with all 
courtesy. Northumberland, who was on his way to 
join his son when he heard of his defeat and death, 
disbanded his forces, and shut himself up in his castle 
of Warkworth. He came, however, and surrendered 
himself to the king at York on the Uth of August, aiid 



1405-1408.] INSURRECTION SUPPRESSED. 37 

received a pardon for all offences in the next parlia* 
ment. 

Though Henry was thus triumphant over his ene- 
mies, his throne was by no means secure : Glendour 
was still in arms ; a false Richard had been set up ;* 
the favourers of the rights of Mortimer were numer- 
ous ; and the young Earl of March had even been 
stolen out of Windsor Castle, but was speedily reta- 
ken. Soon, too, another insurrection broke out in 
Yorkshire, in 1405, headed by Scrope the archbishop, 
Northumberland, and Mowbray, earl-marshal, son of 
the late Duke of Norfolk. A writing was fixed on the 
doors of the churches, charging the king with perjury, 
rebellion, the murder of his sovereign, and various 
other crimes ; and eight thousand men, led by the 
archbishop and the earl-marshal, assembled at Ship- 
ton-on-the-Moor near York. Prince John, Henry's 
third son, and the Earl of Westmoreland, came against 
them. A conference took place between the leaders 
on the 29th of May ; the prelate and earl were induced 
(whether by guile or not is uncertain) to disband their 
forces ; and they were then made prisoners, and con- 
veyed to Henry at Pontefract. The king directed 
Gascoigne, the chief justice, to pass sentence on 
them ; and, when he scrupled to do so, gave the 
charge to a knight named Fulthoi-pe, who made no 
hesitation ; and the prelate and the earl were both 
beheaded. Northumberland fled into Scotland, and 
the king reduced all his castles. Some time after, in 
1408, the earl made an irruption into the north ; but 
he was defeated and slain near Tadcaster on the 28th 
of February, by Sir Tliomas Rokeby, the sheriff of the 
county. Wales was gradually reduced ; but Owen 
Glendour still held out in the retired fastnesses. He 
was living in the following reign, and seems never to 
have lost his liberty or his independence. 

An accident, fortunate for him, but of which he did 
not make the most generous use, gave Henry a con- 
trol over the councils of Scotland. The Duke of Al* 

* See Appendix (B). 
Vol. H.— D 



38 HENRY IV. [1408. 

bany, brother of Robert III., had seized on the power 
of the state ; his eldest nephew, heir to the crown, had 
perished in tlie priso;i in which he had been confined ; 
and Robert, to save his younger son James, a child 
but nine years old, was sending him to France in 1405. 
The ship on board of v/hich the prince was, being cap- 
tured by an English cruiser, Henry, though there was 
a truce betv/een the tv/o countries at the time, refused 
to liberate the royal captive. Robert dying shortly 
after, Albany assumed the government ; and Henry 
then Avas able, by the threat of setting the rightful 
heir at liberty, to keep the regency in a state of sub- 
serviency. He, however, made some amends to the 
prince for his loss of liberty, by having him carefully 
educated. 

The public events of the remainder of this king's 
reign, if we except a slight interference in the quar- 
rels of the French princes, were of no importance. 
The wildness and levities of the Prince of Wales are 
said to have caused his father some uneasiness. This 
prince, who had shown undoubted valour in the field, 
in time of peace plunged into riot and excess ; but 
still gleams of right feeling broke through his follies. 
It is said that, when one of his riotous companions 
had been taken up, and brought before the chief jus- 
tice Gascoigne, the prince went and demanded his re- 
lease ; and, when refused, drew his sword on the 
judge. Gascoigne forthv/ ith ordered him to prison for 
the offence, and the prince meekly submitted. " Hap- 
py the monarch," said the king w^hen he heard it, 
"who has a judge so resolute in the discharge of his 
duty, and a son so willing to submit to^he laws." A 
suspicion was also instilled into the mind of the king, 
that his son aspired to the throne. When the prince 
heard of this, he demanded an audience of his father, 
threw himself on his knees before him, and, handing 
him a dagger, besought him to deprive him of life, 
since he had deprived him of his favour. 

Though the king was but in his forty-sixth year, the 
symptoms of approaching death were manifest. Vio- 
lent eruptions had broken out in his face ; he was 



1413.] 



DEATH OF HENRY. 39 



subject to constant fits of epilepsy ; and remorse, it is 
added, secretly preyed on his conscience. We are 
told that one day, as he lay in a fit apparently dead, 
the prince came in ; and, taking the crown, which, ac- 
cording to custom, lay by him on a cushion, carried it 
into an adjoining room. The king, on recovering, 
sternly asked what had become of his crown ; and the 
prince instantly brought it back. " Alas ! fair son," 
said the king, at the close of their conversation, " what 
right have you to the crown, when you know your fa- 
ther had none 1" " My hege," said the prince, " with 
the sword you won it, and with the sword I will keep 
it." " Well," rephed the king, " do as you think best : 
I leave the issue to God, and hope he will have mercy 
on my soul."* As he was praying in St. Edward's 
Chapel in Westminster Abbey, on the 20th of March, 
1413, he was seized with his last fit, and expired in the 
abbot's chamber. 

Henry IV. was possessed of many estimable qual- 
ities ; and, had he obtained the crown in a regular 
way, would have made an excellent sovereign. In- 
justice, as we have sfeen, drove him to crime ; and one 
act led to another, till they ended in the murder of his 
unhappy kinsman and predecessor. 

By his wife, Mary Bohun, coheiress of the Earl of 
Hereford, Henry had four sons : Henry, his succes- 
sor, Thomas, duke of Clarence, John, duke of Bed- 
ford, and Humphrey, duke of Glouces'ter; and two 
daughters, who were married to the Duke of Bavaria 
and the King of Denmark. He had no issue by his 
second wife, Jane of Navarre. 

Those Avho had given Henry his crown resolved to 
derive advantage from the nature of his title. The 
commons strengthened most of their rights and privi- 
leges in this reign, and acquired new ones. Such, for 
instance, was freedom from arrest for themselves : a 
privilege at that time necessary for the cause of liber- 

* Monstrelet, i., 163. Lingard thinks this was an invention ot 
the rival family. 



40 HENRY IV. [1413. 

ty ; but which, at the present day, only serves to en- 
able poor or dishonest members to baffle their cred- 
itors, and thus brings into or keeps in parliament men 
who should not be there. They also established their 
right not merely to vote, but to appropriate the sup- 
phes. 

The clergy obtained, in the second year of this 
king, the writ De comburendo hceretico ,•* and thus par- 
tially introduced into the kingdom the Inquisition, 
with its horrible autos-da-f^.] Instead of inquiring 
into the opinions of the Lollards, to find whether any 
of them were really injurious to society, they made 
the scholastic dogma of transubstantiation the test. 
Primate Arundel immediately began to act on this 
statute ; and the first victim to the metaphysical Mo- 
loch was William Sautre, parish priest of St. Osithes. 
A tailor named Badby was also burned in the pres- 
ence of Prince Henry, who vainly urged him to recant 
and save himself. 

Though parliament authorized the church to check 
freedom of thought by fire and fagot, they seemed 
well enough inclined to deprive it of its income. In 
the sixth year of Henry, the commons urged him to 
seize the temporahties of the church for the public 
service. They said that the clergy possessed a third 
of the lands of the kingdom, that they bore no part of 
the public burdens, and that their wealth disqualified 
them for the proper discharge of their rehgious duties. 
The primate answered, that the clergy sent their vas- 
sals and tenants to the wars, and that they themselves 
offered up prayers, night and day, for the prosperity 
of the state. The speaker replied, with a smile, that 
he thought their prayers but a slender supply. It was 
the evident policy of Henry to court the clergy, and 
the commons therefore were baffled. In the eleventh 
year of the king, however, they made a new attempt. 

* For the barning of heretics. 

t Auto-da-fe is a Portuguese phrase, literally meaning *' act of 
faith," but commonly applied to signify the public ceremony of 
burning persons charged by the Inquisition with heresy, or with 
disobedience to the institutions of the Romish church. — Am, Ed, 



1413.] ACCESSION OF HENRY V. 41 

They proposed to Henry to seize the whole of the 
church property, as fifteen thousand priests, with sti- 
pends of seven marks ($22) a year, would discharge 
the spiritual duties better than they were then done. 
Henry rejected the proposal with great indignation.* 



CHAPTER X. 

HENRY V.f 

1413-1422, 

Sir John Oldcastle.— Henry claims the Crown of France.— Con- 
spiracy.— Invasion of France. — Battle of Agincourt. — State of 
France.— Conference of Meulant, — The Perpetual Peace. — 
Death of Henry. 

The joy of the nation at the accession of Henry V. 
was extreme. It was, indeed, slightly shaded by the 
conduct of the young monarch. He dismissed his 
former companions with suitable presents, assuring 
them of farther favour when they should show that 
they were reformed. He continued his father's hon- 
est servants and ministers in their offices ; set the Earl 
of March at liberty; restored the Percy family to 
their estates and honours ; and removed the remains 
of Richard H. (by whom he had once been favoured^) 
from Langley, and deposited them in Westminster 
Abbey, himself attending as chief mourner. 

* Walshinghain, 371, 379. They said that the revenue of the 
church would suffice for the support of 15 earls, 1500 knights, 
6000 esquires, and 100 hospitals, besides leaving 20,000/. (S'JG,000) 
a year to the king. 

t Authorities : Walsingham, Elmham, Titus Livius, Monstre- 
let. 

t He attended Richard on his last unfortunate expedition to 
Ireland, at which tune he received knighthood from his hand. 
Richard, though expressing himself satisfied of young Henry's in- 
nocence of his father's designs, left him, when departmg from Ire- 
land, a prisoaer in Uie Castle ot Tnux. 
D8 



42 HENRY V. [1413. 

One cloud alone overcast this propitious dawn. 
The sect of the Lollards was represented to the king 
as holding opinions alike subversive of church and 
state ; and he was induced to allow the zealous pri- 
mate Arundel to put the laws in force against them. 
Sir John Oldcastle (who was Baron of Cobham in right 
of his wife), a man of distinguished military talents, 
and high in the favour of the late king, was regarded 
as the head of the sect ; and the primate, deeming 
him the fittest person to commence with, applied to 
the king for permission to endict him. Henry ad- 
vised moderation, and undertook himself to reason 
with the accused ; but the zealous soldier was not to 
be moved by the royal arguments. The primate was 
then allowed to proceed, and was aided by his suf- 
fragans of London, Winchester, and St. David's. The 
knight was brought before them ; and, after a noble 
defence of his opinions, in which he clearly confuted 
his adversaries, and, at the same time, so explained 
his sentiments as to leave abundant room for concil- 
iation if his judges desired it, he was declared guilty 
of heresy, and delivered over to the tender mercies 
of the secular arm.* He however made his escape 
from the Tower, in which he was confined. He and 
his followers are now said to have formed the atro- 
cious design of surprising the King at Eltham, where 
he kept Christmas ; putting him, his brothers, and the 
principal clergy and nobility to death, and forming the 
realm into a federal republic, with Oldcastle for its 
president. This scheme, it is added, was frustrated 
by the sudden return of the king to Westminster ; and 
the insurgents then were directed to assemble at an 
appointed time in St. Giles's fields ; but the night be- 
fore the king occupied the ground with some troops, 
having previously closed the city-gates to keep in the 
Lollards of the city. The first parties that arrived 
were made prisoners ; and the rest who were coming, 

♦ Read his trial in Foxe, or in Southey's Book of the Church, 
in confirmation of this, i., 359-379. Lingard, on the othgr hand, 
says that " his conduct was as arrogant and insulting as that of 
his judge was mild and dignified." 



1414.] CLAIMS THE CROWN OF FRANCE. 43 

when they heard this ill news, dispersed and fled. 
This occurred in 1414. 

This account, which is given by the bitter enemies 
of the Lollards, has a most improbable air ; yet we 
know not what violent projects men driven to desper- 
ation may have formed. At all events, the prisons in 
and about London were filled; and thirty-nine per- 
sons, among whom was Sir Roger Acton, a man of 
good property, were suspended by chains from a gal- 
lows in Ficket Field, and then burned alive as here- 
tics and traitors. A reward of 1000 marks ($3200) 
was offered for Lord Cobham, dead or alive ; but he 
escaped into Wales, where, during four years, he 
eluded his persecutors. At length he was discovered 
by Lord Powis. He defended himself vahantly ; and 
would probably not have been taken alive, if a woman 
had not broken his leg with a blow of a stool. He 
was carried to London in a horse-litter, where he was 
hung by a chain, and burned alive as a heretic* 

It is said that the late king had, when dying, charged 
his son, if he wished for domestic quiet, never to let 
the nation remain long at rest ; it is also said that 
the primate, fearing an attack on the property of the 
church, to which parliament was urging the king, to 
divert his thoughts and those of the nation to other 
objects, advised him to assert his claim to the crown 
of France. Whether these counsels were given or 
not, the present distracted state of France offered a 
fair field for ambition. The king, Charles VI., after 
some years of the fairest promise, became subject to 
fits of derangement. The conduct of affairs was dis- 
puted between his brother, the Duke of Orleans, and 
his cousin, the Duke of Burgundy. The latter having 
caused the former to be assassinated, the kingdom 
was filled with bloodshed and ruin by the two con- 

♦ " Judgment," says Lingard, " was instantly pronounced, that 
he should be hanged as a traitor and burned as a heretic. St. 
Giles's fields, which had been the theatre of his rebellion, wit- 
nessed also his punishment." This is not a fair statement : as the 
reader is led to think that he was first hanged, and then his body 
burned, instead of being roasted to death as he was. 



44 HENRY V. [1415. 

tending parties ; for the princes of the blood all sided 
with the young Duke of Orleans, whose party was 
named the Armagnacs, from his father-in-law, the 
count of that name. The late King of England had 
fomented the quarrel, by giving alternate aid to each 
party; and the ardent spirit of the present young 
monarch urged him to renew his claim to the crown. 
This demand being at once rejected, Henry offered to 
be content Avith the full sovereignty of Normandy, 
Maine, and Anjou, the places named in the Peace of 
Bretigni, and one half of Provence ;* requiring that 
the arrears of King John's ransom should be paid, and 
the Princess Catharine should be given in marriage to 
him, with a portion of two millions of gold crowns. 
These terms were too extravagant to be entertained ; 
but he was offered the whole of the ancient duchy of 
Aquitaine, and the princess with a dower of 600,000 
crowns ($684,000). Henry recalled his ambassadors 
and began to prepare for war, his parliament cheer- 
fully granting him two tenths and two fifteenths. He 
however sent again in 1415, giving up his claim to 
Normandy, Maine, and Anjou, and offering to take the 
princess with one milhon of crowns, but insisting on 
all the other terms. The French court offered to raise 
the princess's portion to 800,000 crowns ($912,000), 
but would yield on no other point. Henry forthwith 
prepared for war ; and, by pawning his jewels and by 
loans, he raised a sum of 500,000 nobles ($800,000), 
while his barons and knights were busily engaged in 
levying troops. 

When the army had assembled at Southampton, the 
king proceeded thither. Visions of glory floated be- 
fore his imagination as he viewed the embarcation of 
his gallant troops ; but these visions were overcast 
with gloom by information of a conspiracy among 
those of his ov»^n family and household, to rob him of 
life and fame. The objects of the conspirators, the 
Earl of Cambridge, brother to the Duke of York, Sir 

♦ Henry III. and his brother had married two of the four co« 
heiresses of Berenger, count of Provence. 



1415.] CONSPIRACY AGAINST HENRY. 45 

Thomas Grey, and Lord Scroop of Masham, are ob- 
scure. Their plan is said to have been to conduct the 
Earl of March to the frontiers of Wales, and there pro- 
claim him king, in case that Richard II. were really- 
dead. They were condemned and executed as trai- 
tors : but the innocence of the Earl of March would 
seem to be proved by the circumstance of his sitting 
as one of their judges. Yet such was the insecurity 
of life and honour in those days, that he deemed it 
prudent, soon after, to obtain from the king a pardon 
for all treasons and offences.* 

King Henry soon embarked ; and a speedy voyage 
carried his fleet of fifteen hundred sail to the mouth 
of the Seine, where, on the 14th of August, he landed 
a gallant army of six thousand men-at-arms and twen- 
ty-four thousand archers, and immediately invested 
the town of Harfleur by sea and land. After a valiant 
resistance for nearly five weeks, the town capitulated 
on the 22d of September ; the inhabitants were ex- 
pelled, being only permitted to take a part of their 
clothes and fivepence each ; and the remainder of the 
property was divided among the victorious army. 
But this army was soon sadly thinned by dysentery ; 
and, when the sick and wounded had been sent home 
to England, and a garrison had been placed in Har- 
fleur, the king found his troops reduced to one half 
their original number, and no longer adequate to any 
enterprise of moment. Still, his chivalrous spirit 
would not suffer him to re-embark, without giving 
some farther proof of his knightly daring ; and, in 
spite of the remonstrances of his council, he resolved, 
on the 8th of October, to lead his diminished forces to 
Calais. The army marched in three divisions (the 
usual English mode) ; supplies were hardly procured 
from the villages on the way ; and the enemy hung on 
them, and cut off the stragglers. At length they ap- 
proached Blanchetaque, where Edward III. had cross- 
ed the Somme ; but the ford was now secured by lines 

* Hallam says, " he had certainly connived for a while at the 
conspiracy."— View of the State of Europe during the Middle 
Ages, p. 446, Harpers' edition. 



46 HENRY V. [1415. 

of palisades, with troops stationed behind them. The 
king retired, and moved up the river ; but all the bridg- 
es were broken, and all the fords secured ; and the en- 
emy moved as he moved along the opposite bank. At 
length, finding a ford near Bethencourt unguarded, the 
English crossed, and established themselves on the 
right bank. D'Albret, constable of France, who com- 
manded the French army, fell back towards Calais, 
sending orders to all the troops that were on their 
march to join him without delay. Meantime, in a 
council of war held at Rouen, at which King Charles 
was present, it was resolved to give battle ; and or- 
ders to that effect were transmitted to the constable, 
who communicated them by heralds to King Henry, 
inquiring which way he intended to march. The king 
replied, by that which led straight to Calais ; and dis- 
missed the heralds, with a present of one hundred 
crowns. 

The English leisurely pursued their march towards 
Blangi. On reaching an eminence, the Duke of York 
descried the enemy making for Azincourt.* The 
king gave orders to form in line of battle ; but, as the 
enemy did not approach, the English, after standing 
in their ranks till evening, advanced to a village na- 
med Maisoncelles, where they obtained good provis- 
ions and remained for the night. The French, who 
now amounted to at least fifty thousand horsemen, 
took a position in the fields before the village of Azin- 
court, through which the English, who D'Albret was 
resolved should be the assailants, must pass. Though 
the night was dark and rainy, they assembled round 
their banners, reveUing and discussing the events of 
the coming day, even fixing the ransoms of the Eng- 
lish king and his barons : for of victory they had not 
a doubt. The English passed the night far different- 
ly : they made their wills, and employed themselves 
in devotional exercises. Sickness, famine, and the 
thoughts of the paucity of their numbers tended to 
deject them ; but the recollection of former victories 

* Called by English writers Agincourt. 



1415.] BATTLE OF AZINCOURT. 47 

and the gallant spirit of their king raised their spirits. 
The king took little rest : he visited all the quarters ; 
made his dispositions for battle next day ; bands of 
music, by his orders, played all through the night ; 
and before sunrise, on the ii5th of October, he sum- 
moned all the army to hear mass, and then led them 
to the field. 

The English were drawn up in three divisions and 
two wings ; the archers, as usual, being in advance 
of the men-at-arms. Each archer had a long stake, 
sharp at both ends, to stick into the ground before 
him, as a defence against the charge of the French 
cavalry. The king, mounted on a gray palfrey, hav- 
ing his helmet of polished steel wreathed with a crown 
of sparkling stones, rode from rank to rank cheering 
his men. Hearing one officer say to another that he 
wished a miracle would transfer thither some of the 
good knights who were sitting idle at home, he de- 
clared aloud that he would not have a single man 
more ; as, if God should give them the victory, it 
would be plainly due to his goodness ; and, if he did 
not, the fewer that fell, the less would be the loss to 
their country : but of the result he had no apprehen- 
sion. The French army was similarly arrayed ; but 
its files were thirty, while those of the English were 
but four deep. The distance between the armies was 
not more than a quarter of a mile. 

As the French did not advance, the king directed 
refreshments to be distributed through the ranks ; and 
he secretly sent off two detachments, the one to lie 
in ambush in a meadow on the enemy's left flank, the 
other to set fire to the houses in his rear during the 
action. Three French knights then came, summon- 
ing them to surrender. The king ordered them off, 
and forthwith cried, " Banners, advance !" Sir Thom- 
as Ei-pingham cast his warder into the air ; the men 
fell on their knees, bit the ground, and then rose, and 
with a shout ran towards the foe. When they had 
gone twenty paces, they halted and shouted again ; 
those in ambush repeated the shout ; the archers fixed 
their stakes obliquely in the ground, and, running be- 



48 HENRY V. [1415. 

yond them, discharged their arrows ; a body of eigh' 
hundred horse, appointed to oppose them, was slaugh- 
tered and dispersed ; and, in the confusion, the archers 
slung their bows behind their backs, and, grasping 
their swords and battle-axes, rushed on, killed the 
constable and his principal officers, and routed the 
whole of the first division. The archers formed again 
by the king's directions, who now came up with the 
men-at-arms, and attacked the second division, led by 
the Duke of Alen§on. Here the resistance was ob- 
stinate. The Duke of Clarence being wounded and 
on the ground, the king stood over and defended him 
till he v/as removed to a place of safety. Eighteen 
French knights, bound by a vow to take or slay the 
king, now rushed on him, and a blow from the mace 
of one brought him on his knees ; but his guards res- 
cued him, and slew all the assailants. The Duke of 
Alengon reached the royal standard, killed the Duke 
of York, and cleft the crovni on the king's head ; but 
he speedily fell, and his division turned and fled. Hen- 
ry now prepared to attack the third division. Just 
then word came that a large force Avas falling on the 
rear. In the hurry of the moment, the king gave or- 
ders to put the prisoners to death ; and numbers had 
actually perished, when it was discovered that the 
alarm was caused by a body of six hundred peasants, 
who had entered Maisoncelles and were plundering 
the baggage. The slaughter was then stopped.* 
Meantime, the houses in the rear of the French had 
been set on fire ; the third division began to waver ; 
and only six hundred men could be induced to follow 
their leaders, the counts Falconberg and Marie, in a 
charge on the English, where they found captivity or 
death. 

The victory was now complete. " To Avhom," said 
the king to Montjoy, the French king-at-arms, "to 

* Sir James Mackintosh says, that " a greater part of the noble 
prisoners were slain, mutilated, disfigured, mortally or painfully 
wounded, before it was discovered that the whole was a false 
alarm, to which Henry had lent too credulous an ear. He stopped 
the m5,sf.acre, but too late for the purity of his name."— ^m. Ed. 



1416.] STATE OF FRANCE. 49 

whom doth the victory belong V •' To you, sir," was 
the reply. " And what castle is that I see at a dis- 
tance V "It is called the castle of Azincourt." 
" Then," said the king, " be this battle known to pos- 
terity by the name of the battle of Azincourt." A fa- 
tal battle it was to France ! Among the slain were 
the dukes of Brabant, Bar, and Alen^on, the constable 
and admiral of France, seven counts, and more than 
one hundred bannerets, and eight thousand knights 
and esquires ; and among the prisoners were the 
dukes of Orleans and Bourbon, and the counts of Eu, 
Vendome, and Richemont. The loss of the EngUsh 
was but sixteen hundred men, with the Duke of York 
and Earl of Suffolk. As they crossed the field of bat- 
tle the next morning on their way to Calais, they 
killed such of the wounded as were still alive ; and, 
when they were gone, thousands of men and women 
flocked from the surrounding villages and stripped the 
dead, leaving them totally naked. 

After a short stay at Calais, Henry returned to 
England, leading his noble captives with him. He 
was received with enthusiasm in London, where, af- 
ter the manner of the age, the streets were hung with 
rich tapestry, curious pageants were exhibited, and 
the public conduits were made to nm sweet wines. 
The parliament, too, was most liberal in its grants to 
the triumphant monarch. 

The next year, 1416, the Count of Armagnac, who 
now governed France, as the dauphin was dead, made 
a vigorous attempt to recover Harfieur, which he be- 
sieged by sea and land. But the Duke of Bedford, the 
king's brother, soon appeared with a numerous fleet, 
defeated that of the French, and relieved the town. 
Soon after. King Henry and the Emperor Sigismund 
(who had visited England, where he formed an alli- 
ance with the king) passed over to Calais, and had an 
interview with the Duke of Burgundy, under the pre- 
text of seeking a remedy for the schism which now 
existed in the church; but, in reality, to arrange the 
plan of war against France, where matters were now 
in the utmost confusion, Armagnac had induced the 

Vol. II.— E 



50 HENRY V. [1418. 

imbecile monarch to order the seizure of the treasures 
of the Queen Isabella of Bavaria, whom he also accu- 
sed of adultery, and caused to be confined at Tours. 
Isabella, a woman of a fierce, vindictive spirit, in- 
stantly proposed a league to the Duke of Burgundy, 
whose bitterest enemy she had hitherto been. Her 
offer was accepted ; and the duke, at the head of six- 
ty thousand men, marched towards Paris, taking all 
the towns in his way. As the Armagnacs held that 
city, he passed on to Etampes and Chartres ; and the 
queen, as was concerted, having prevailed on her 
guards to accompany her to a church in the suburbs 
of Tours, the duke, who was lying with eight hundred 
men in an adjoining forest, appeared and carried her 
to Troyes, where she assumed the title of regent, 
making him her lieutenant. 

Meanwhile King Henry had landed in Normandy, 
on the 1st of August, with an army of sixteen thou- 
sand men-at-arms, and an equal number of archers. 
Fortress after fortress and toAvn after town submit- 
ted ; Caen was taken by storm ; Bayeux by compo- 
sition ; and the campaign closed with the reduction 
of Falaise. In the spring of 1418, having received a 
re-enforcement of fifteen thousand men, he divided his 
forces, and speedily reduced the w^hole of Lower 
Normandy. He then proceeded, on the 30th of July, 
to invest Roi>en, the capital of the province ;* which, 
though possessing a brave garrison, after an obstinate 
defence of nearly six months, was obliged to open its 
gates. 

While the King of England was thus recovering 
what he regarded as the patrimony of his ancestors, 
the two parties into which the French were divided 
thought only of opposing each other. On the night 
of the 23d of May, one of the gates of Paris was se- 
cretly opened to a party of the Burgundians ; they 
were joined by thousands of the citizens ; the Count 
of Armagnac, several ladies and bishops, and lords and 
members of the parliament, were thrown into prison ; 

♦ The population of Rouen is said to have been 200,000 souls. 
At the present day it is not half that number. 



1419.] FALL OF ROUEN. 51 

and, on the night of the 12th of June, a mob of sixty 
thousand persons assembled, broke open the prisons, 
and massacred all in them, without distinction of sex 
or rank, and then slaughtered all in the city who were 
hostile to the Burgundian faction. The present dau- 
phin, the third son of the king, was taken out of bed 
by a knight named Tannegui du Chastel, wrapped in 
a sheet, and conveyed away. The queen and duke 
entered Paris the next day in triumph, where they 
now exercised the royal authority without opposition. 
The adverse party retired to Poitiers, and proclaimed 
the young dauphin regent. Both parties made pro- 
posals to Henry ; who, as was his interest to do, only 
sought to play them off against each other. At length 
the fall of Rouen, on the 13th of January, 1419, 
awakening them to a sense of their danger, they re- 
newed their negotiations, the dauphin even soliciting 
a personal interview. But he did not keep his ap- 
pointment when made ; and the duke then proposed an 
interview between the two kings. It was arranged 
that Charles should come to Pontoise, and Henry to 
Mantes. In a plain near Meulant, between these 
towns, a plot of ground, washed on one side by the 
Seine and enclosed by palisades on the other three, 
was marked out for the conference. At a mast which 
was raised in the centre stood two rich pavilions for 
the royal parties ; and tents were pitched on the right 
of the enclosure for the attendants of Henry, on the 
left for those of Charles. 

On the appointed day, the 30th of May, the King of 
France, having an attack of his disorder, could not 
appear; but in the morning, the queen, the princess, 
and the Duke of Burgundy came escorted by one thou- 
sand horse ; and Henry and his brothers of Clarence 
and Gloucester arrived, followed by one thousand 
men-at-arms. They met in the centre ; the king 
bowed to the queen and princess, whom he had never 
seen before ; Catharine, who was graceful and beauti- 
ful, employed, as instructed by her mother, all her 
charms on the heart of the king ; and when, in spite 
of his efforts, the queen saw that they had taken ef- 



52 HENRY V. [1419, 1420. 

feet, the princess was removed and appeared no more. 
Henry's demands were Normandy and the provinces 
ceded by the peace of Bretigni in full sovereignty ; 
the French ministers made no objection ; the confer- 
ences were extended on one pretext or another for an 
entire month ; and at length Henry discovered that 
the whole was a feint, and that Burgundy had been 
meantime negotiating with the dauphin through a lady 
of the name of De Giac. The two princes met soon 
after, on the Uth of July, at Melun; and vowed to 
forget past injuries, and unite their forces against the 
Enghsh. Henry, for the present, could only avenge 
himself by the surprise and capture of Pontoise. 

It would appear that Henry's hopes of the conquest 
of France were now at an end ; yet, ere many months 
were past, he had gained all he could desire. The 
duke and dauphin, who still distrusted each other, 
agreed to a conference at Montereau on the Yonne. 
They were to meet on the bridge over that river, 
across which barriers were placed with gates in them. 
Each entered the intermediate space with ten attend- 
ants, on the 10th of September; the duke bent his 
knee to the dauphin, and was addressing him, when 
he was struck in the face with a small axe by Tan- 
negui du Chastel, and was despatched by several 
wounds : one of his followers escaped, another was 
slain, and the rest were made prisoners. The dau- 
phin constantly denied his previous knowledge of this 
foul deed; but those who perpetrated it still retained 
his favour. It, however, ruined his cause : all France 
was filled with horror and indignation ; and the heir 
of the murdered prince, thinking only of revenge, has- 
tened to conclude a treaty with Henry, the queen 
engaging that Charles should ratify whatever was ar- 
ranged. Henry's terms were the hand of the Princess 
Catharine, the regency during the king's lifetime, and 
the crown at his death. These terms were at once 
acceded to. Henry marched at the head of sixteen 
thousand men-at-arms to Troyes, where the court 
then was ; the " Perpetual Peace," as it was styled, 
was sworn to on the 21st of May, 1420 ; the princess 



1421.] 



HIS MARRIAGE. 53 



and he were affianced, and, after a short interval, mar- 
ried on the 2d of June ; and Henry then, accompanied 
by his bride, set out to conduct the siege of Sens. 

In the winter the two kings returned to Paris, 
where the states-general met, and gave their approba- 
tion to the treaty. Henry then, in 1421, conducted 
his lovely bride to England ; and she was there crown- 
ed with a magnificence before unknown. While the 
king remained in England, his brother of Clarence, 
whom he had left in command in Normandy, made an 
irruption into Anjou, which adhered to the dauphin. 
The Marshal La Fayette assembled what troops he 
could ; among which were seven thousand Scots, un- 
der the Earl of Buchan, the regent's son. Clarence, 
advancing with only his men-at-arms, fell in with 
them on the 22d of March, at a place named Beauje ; 
and, being greatly outnumbered, his force was utterly 
routed; twelve hundred being slain, and three hun- 
dred made prisoners. The duke himself was wound- 
ed by Sir William Swynton, and then slain by Buchan, 
whom the dauphin for this victory made Constable of 
France. On the news of this disaster, Henry returned 
without delay to France on the 20th of June, with four 
thousand men-at-arms and twenty-four thousand arch- 
ers, and accompanied by the young king of Scotland, 
whose presence he hoped would operate on the alle- 
giance of the Scots in the French service. He drove 
the dauphin from Chartres, and forced him to take 
refuge in Bourges ; then returning to Paris to gratify 
the Parisians, he laid siege to Meaux, which he 
reduced after a siege of five months; and now all 
France north of the Loire, except Anjou and Maine, 
obeyed him. 

To crown his happiness, his queen, who had given 
birth to a son, came over with her infant to join him. 
The two courts met at Paris to keep Whitsuntide, 
which was celebrated with the utmost magnificence. 
But this was the last of the glories of King Henry. 
A fatal disease was secretly preying on him ; and, on 
his march to raise the siege of Cosne, he found him- 
self so unweU on the 30th of July, that he was obliged 
E2 



54 HENRY V. [1421. 

to resign the command to the Duke of Bedford, and 
return to Vincennes. He was soon aware that recov- 
ery was hopeless. The infancy of his son gave him 
uneasiness ; and, on the day of his death (August 
31), he strongly recommended his queen and her 
child to his brother of Bedford and his other nobles. 
He advised them to cultivate the friendship of the 
Duke of Burgundy, to offer him the regency of France, 
and never to release the princes taken at Azincourt : 
and he charged them, in the worst of cases, not to 
make peace unless Normandy was ceded to the crown 
of England. A few hours after he breathed his last, 
with the utmost resignation. He was only in the 
thirty-fourth year of his age, and the tenth of his 
reign. 

This great prince was justly a favourite with his 
people.* He was handsome in person and affable in 
manners. His valour was undoubted; and it was 
united with skill and prudence. In the pursuit of his 
unfounded claim to the crown of France, he was as 
conspicuous in the capacity of the statesman as in that 
of the warrior. 

The queen-dowager, Catharine, afterward married 
Sir Owen Tudor, a gentlema,n of Wales. They had 
two sons : Ednmnd, created earl of Richmond, and 
Jasper, earl of Pembroke. As we proceed, we shall 
behold their descendants seated on the throne of 
England. 

*" Mankind, in all ages, have been strangely dazzled and cap- 
tivated by ttie glare of military renown, and doubtless the Eng- 
lish were intoxicated with the fame of their victorious monarch ; 
but it would be difficult to point out any quahties of substantial 
goodness in his character, which might justly claim for him the 
regard of his people while living, or their affectionate remem- 
brance of him when dead. In speaking of the funeral honours 
accorded to this prince. Sir James Mackintosh says that "his 
remains were interred at Westminster with unv.'onted pomp, amid 
the undue and unreasonable regrets of a populace drunk with vic- 
tory."— Am. Ed. 



1422.] AFFAIRS OF ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 55 



CHAPTER XL 

HENRY VI.* 

1422-1461. 

Affairs of France and England. — Battle of Verneuil. — Siege of 
Orleans. — Battle of the Herrings — Joan of Arc ; her Cruel 
Death. — Losses of the English. — The King's Marriage. — Death 
of the Duke of Gloucester ; of Cardinal Beaufort. — Accusation 
of Suffolk ; his Death.— Jack Cade.— The Duke of York.— 
Battle of St. Alban's.— War of the Roses.— Battle of Blore 
Heath. — York declared Heir to the Crown. — Battle of Wake- 
field ; of Mortimer's Cross. 

A MINORITY for the fourth time appears in the royal 
line of England, the new monarch being an infant 
only nine months old. The English parliament, re- 
gardless of the wishes of the late king, refused the 
Duke of Gloucester the title and authority of regent. 
A council of regency was appointed, with the Duke 
of Bedford (and, during his absence, the Duke of 
Gloucester) at its head, under the title of Protector ; 
and the parliament then dissolved. 

The Duke of Burgundy having declined the regency 
of France, it was conferred on the Duke of Bedford 
by King Charles. This imbecile monarch followed 
his gallant son-in-law to the grave within two months ; 
and his death seriously aftected the Enghsh interest, 
by withdrawing from it the semblance of royal au- 
thority, which it had hitherto possessed. The dau- 
phin forthwith assumed the regal title as Charles VII., 
and was crowned and anointed at Chartres. Bed- 
ford, who equalled his late brother in ability and 
valour, and surpassed him in manners, sought by every 
means to attach the dukes of Burgundy and Brittany ; 

* Authorities: Monstrelet, Wyrcestre, Whethamstede, Cont. 
of Croyland, Hardynge, Fenn's Paston Letters. The English 
chroniclers Fabyan, Hall, &c., now begin to be authorities. 



56 HENRY VI. [1423,1424. 

and, at a conference held at Arras, the three princes 
bound themselves to each other by oaths, cemented 
by the marriage of the dukes of Bedford and Brittany 
to the sisters of the Duke of Burgundy. The war in 
France was continued. Bedford occupied himself, in 
1423, in reducing such towns and castles in the north 
as still held out. An army of French and Scots 
formed the siege of Crevent on the Yonne ; and the 
Earl of Salisbury joined the Burgundians and led his 
troops to its relief. The Enghsh forced the passage 
of the bridge on the 31st of July, the Burgundians fol- 
lowed, and the enemy were totally defeated ; their 
two commanders, the Constable of Scotland and the 
Count of Ventadour, being made pr'boaers. The 
capture of La Charite, on the Loire, opened a passage 
into the southern provinces. 

As the Scottish government had lately sent Charles 
a re-enforcement of five thousand men, under Earl 
Douglas, and it was feared that they might invade the 
north of Englaiid, the English ministry at this time 
offered King .Tames his liberty, on condition of his 
paying £40,000 ($192,000) for the expenses of his 
nineteen years' captivity, and forbidding his subjects 
to enter the service of France. These terms were 
agreed to ; and James, having espoused an English 
lady of high descent, to whom he had long been be- 
trothed, returned to his native kingdom, where he 
proved the ablest and best monarch that Scotland had 
ever possessed. 

In the next campaign, in 1424, the Duke of Bedford, 
with two thousand men-at-arms and seven thousand 
archers, laid siege to Yvri in Normandy, where the 
garrison had raised the standard of Charles. The 
Constable of France, with an army of eighteen thou- 
sand men, came to his relief ; but, despairing of suc- 
cess, he turned aside and surprised Verneuil. The 
Duke of Bedford advanced to attack the enemy on 
the 17th of August, who did not refuse the combat. 
The English men-at-arms formed one compact mass, 
with the archers, protected by their stakes, on the 
flanks. A body of two thousand archers were set to 



1425.] JACQUELINE OF HOLLAND. 57 

guard the horses and the baggage in the rear ; and 
they fastened the horses together by their heads and 
tails, and mixed them through the baggage so as to 
form an insuperable barrier. After the battle had 
lasted for an hour, without any advantage on either 
side, a body of French and Italian cavalry fell on the 
baggage ; but, unable to penetrate it, they stood as 
marks for the arrows of the archers, who, when they 
had slain or driven them off, ran to the front, and with 
a shout fell on the enemy. This decided the battle : 
the French fled, with a loss of three thousand men ; 
and sixteen hundred of the victors lay on the plain. 
The Constable of France, his countryman Earl Doug- 
las and his son, and other nobles, were among the 
slain : the Duke of Alen(;on and two hundred gentle- 
men were made prisoners. 

The victory of Verneuil was productive of no con- 
sequences of importance : the blame has been laid 
on the ambition of the Duke of Gloucester. Jacque- 
line, heiress of Hainault, Holland, Zealand, and Fries- 
land, having been married to John, dauphin of France, 
was, on his death, married to her cousin-german the 
Duke of Brabant ; a weak-minded youth only in his 
sixteenth year. Jacqueline, a woman of masculine 
spirit, soon learned to despise her feeble helpmate ; 
and at length, in 1420, she left him and repaired to 
England, where the Duke of Gloucester, smitten with 
the charms of herself and her heritage, sought her 
hand. After the death of Henry V. he openly es- 
poused her ; alleging that her marriage with her cousin 
was void, though the Council of Constance had grant- 
ed a dispensation. The Duke of Burgundy, who was 
cousin to the Duke of Brabant, was highly offended ; 
and the Duke of Bedford was in the utmost per- 
plexity. It was proposed to leave the matter to the 
pope ; but Gloucester refused ; and, at the head of 
five thousand men, took possession of Hainault in 
1425. The Duke of Burgundy sent aid to his cousin; 
and a challenge passed between him and Gloucester, 
but the duel did not take place. Gloucester returned 
to England, leaving Jacqueline at Mons. She was 



58 HENRY VI. [1426-1428. 

obliged to surrender, and was conducted to Ghent, 
whence she made her escape in man's attire, and fled 
to Holland, where she maintained the war for two 
years ; but at length, in 1428, was obliged to submit 
to the Duke of Burgundy. Gloucester, in the mean 
time, seems to have given up all thoughts of her ; for 
he married Eleanor, daughter of Lord Cobham. 

Gloucester also caused his brother much uneasi- 
ness by his quarrels with their uncle, Henry Beau- 
fort, the bishop of Winchester. This ambitious pre- 
late was second son of John of Gaunt by Catharine 
Swynford ; and he held the high ofiice of chancellor. 
Bedford was obhged to come over to England in 1426, 
to effect an apparent reconciliation between them. 
The following year the prelate received a cardinal's 
hat from Rome. 

For three years, owing to the want of means on 
both sides, the war had languished in France. Mean- 
time the Duke of Brittany had yielded to the instances 
of his brother, the Count of Richemont, whom Charles 
had made constable of France, and began to separ- 
ate himself from his English alliance. Bedford im- 
mediately poured his troops into Brittany, defeated 
the Bretons everywhere, and soon forced the duke to 
renew his engagements. On his return to Paris in 
1428, several councils were held ; and it was resolv- 
ed, contrary, it is said, to the opinion of the regent, 
to carry the war beyond the Loire. The campaign 
was to be opened by the siege of Orleans, a strong, 
well-garrisoned city on the right bank of that river. 
The English army of ten thousand men, under the 
Earl of Salisbury, one of their ablest generals, cross- 
ed the Loire, and, on the 23d of October, carried by 
assault the Tournelles, or castle which defended the 
bridge on the left bank ; but the garrison had broken 
down one of the arches ; and a few days after, as 
Salisbury was looking out from one of the windows 
of the Tournelles, he was struck in the face by a shot 
from the ramparts, and died of his wound. The, 
command then devolved on the Earl of Suffolk ; re- 
enforcements arrived, and bastilles, or huts defended 



1429.] 



BATTLE OF THE HERRINGS." 59 



by intrenchments, were constructed round the city : 
but the spaces between them were so great, on ac- 
count of the extent of the walls, that the enemy, who 
had large magazines at Blois, found little difficulty in 
conveying in supplies. 

In the beginning of Lent, in 1429, Sir John Falstaff 
set out from Paris, with fifteen hundred men and four 
hundred wagons, laden with salt herrings and other 
provisions, for the besiegers. At the village of 
Roveray, on the 12th of February, he learned that 
the Earl of Clermont was advancing, with from four 
to five thousand horse, to intercept him. He halted, 
and formed round his men a circle of the wagons, 
leaving but two openings, each guarded by a strong 
body of archers. The commander of the Scots in 
the French army advised that the men-at-arms should 
dismount: Clermont refused; and it was finally agreed 
that each might do as he pleased. Before day the 
attack was made ; the English arrows flew with their 
usual effect, and, ere long, the enemy fled, leaving six 
hundred men slain. After this " Battle of the Her- 
rings," as it was named, Falstaff" reached the camp in 
safety. Lines were now run from bastille to bastille, 
and the town was completely shut in. The besieged 
offered to surrender the town into the hands of the 
Duke of Burgundy ; but the regent insisted on its be- 
ing given up to the English, who had won it with their 
blood. 

The fate of Orleans now seemed decided ; a general 
gloom overspread the French court, and Charles even 
meditated flight into Spain or Scotland ; but his mis- 
tress, Agnes Sorel, it is said, recalled him to more 
manly thoughts ; and at length one of the most extra- 
ordinary persons mentioned in history came to raise 
the fallen fortunes of France. 

In the small hamlet of Domremy, in Champagne, 
dwelt a peasant named Jacques d'Arc, among whose 
children was a daughter whose name was Joan. The 
character of this maiden was stainless ; and she was 
remarkable for her piety and serious cast of thought. 
The misfortunes of her king and country made a 



60 HENRY VI. [1429. 

strong impression on her mind, and incessant soli- 
tary brooding soon produced imaginary visions. She 
fancied that the saints Margaret and Catharine used 
to appear to her, and urge her to undertake the de- 
fence of her country. She addressed herself to Bau- 
dricourt, lord of the neighbouring town of Vancou- 
leur, requiring to be sent to the dauphin, as she was 
appointed by Heaven to crown him. Baudricourt 
laughed at her pretensions ; but afterward, either be- 
lieving in her mission, or seeing the advantage that 
might be derived from it, he sent her with a small 
retinue to Chinon, where the court resided. Joan 
appeared, clad in man's attire. After some delay, she 
was admitted to the presence of the king, whom she 
assured that she was sent by Heaven to raise the 
siege of Orleans, and to conduct liim to Rheims to be 
crowned. It is added, that, though she had never be- 
fore seen the king, she recognised him at once among 
his courtiers ; that she told him secrets known only 
to himself, and described and claimed a sword in the 
church of St. Catharine of Fierbois, whose very ex- 
istence had been forgotten. She was examined by a 
council of lawyers and divines at Poitiers, who pro- 
nounced her inspired. Mounted on a stately gray 
charger, which she managed with a dexterity acquired 
in her village (but which, to those who knew not her 
origin, appeared miraculous), and preceded by a ban- 
ner, in which the Deity was represented as a venera- 
ble old man, bearing a globe in his hand, and sur- 
rounded by fleurs-de-lis, the Maid was exhibited to the 
people, whose joy and enthusiasm knew no bounds. 
Care at the same time was taken that the most ex- 
aggerated accounts of the Heaven-sent deliverer 
should reach the English camp ; where, in despite of 
the efforts of Suffolk and his officers, a secret terror 
soon began to pervade the minds of the soldiers.* 

* Doubtless the same superstition which gave fresh courage to 
the French was scarcely less effectual in dispiriting their adver- 
saries. The belief in miracles was almost universal in that age. 
'• The English at first," says Russel, " affected to speak with 
derision of the Maid and her heavenly commission ; but their 



1429.] JOAN OF ARC. 61 

As want was now felt in. Orleans, a large supply of 
provisions was collected at Blois, to be sent thither 
under a convoy of seven thousand men, led by the 
able La Hire. Joan repaired thither, ordered the sol- 
diers to confess themselves, and banished from the 
camp all the women of loose life. At the same time 
she wrote to Suffolk, ordering him, in the Divine 
name, to raise the siege. La Hire embarked the 
provisions in boats ; his troops, headed by the Maid, 
bearing her sacred banner, marched along the bank to 
protect them ; a sally from the town distracted the at- 
tention of the English, and the Maid and the stores 
entered Orleans unopposed. A few days after she 
headed a party of volunteers, and attacked and car- 
ried two of the bastilles. She then assailed the 
Tournelles ; and, after an assault of fourteen hours, 
during which she was wounded in the neck, that for- 
tress was carried. The hopes of the English now 
completely expired ; and at dawn the next day, the 
8th of May, they set fire to their Une of forts, and de- 
parted from before Orleans. 

The Earl of Suffolk was now besieged for ten days 
in Jargeau, whither he had retired. The Maid head- 
ed the attack and scaled the wall ; a stone struck her 
on the head, and she fell down into the ditch. " On ! 
on ! my countrymen," cried she, as she lay ; " fear 
naught ; the Lord hath delivered them into our hands." 
An unguarded place Avas discovered ; the French 
rushed in, part of the garrison were slain, and the 
rest made prisoners. "Are you a knight]" said 
Suffolk to the officer who demanded his sword. He 
rephed in the negative. " Then," said the earl, " I 
make you one ;" and he gave him the blow of knight- 
hood with his sword, which he then surrendered. 
Melun and other fortresses opened their gates, and 

imagination was secretly strnclv. with the strong persuasion which 
prevailed in all around thein. They found their courage daunted 
by degrees, and thence began to infer a Divine vengeance hanging 
over them. A silent astonishment reigned among those troops, 
formerly so elated with victory and so fierce for the combat."— 
Russell's Modern Europe, i., 280, Harpers' edition.— ^?tt. Ed. 
Vol. n.— F 



62 HENRY VI. [1429. 

Lord Talbot led the dispirited remains of the Englisb 
army towards Paris ; but at Patay he was overtaken 
by the French. Falstaff advised a retreat ; but Tal- 
bot disdained to show his back to an enemy. The 
English, however, made but a feeble stand : twelve 
hundred men were slain, and Talbot and Lord Scales 
were made prisoners. Falstaff, who had fled in the 
beginning, was deprived of the order of the garter ; 
but, on his proving to the regent that it was little 
short of madness to fight at Patay, his honours were 
restored. 

The heroic Maid of Orleans, as she was now na- 
med, had performed the first part of her mission. She 
now urged the king to set out for Rheims, that the 
whole might be fulfilled ; and, though all the interme- 
diate country was in the hands of the English and 
Burgundians, Charles and his ministers resolved to 
hearken to her. Attended by ten thousand horse, the 
king set forth. At Auxerre, the people, though they 
feared to open their gates, supplied him with provis- 
ions ; Troyes and Chalons readily received him ; and 
the people of Rheims expelled their Burgundian gar- 
rison. The holy oil, brought, as the legend told, by a 
dove from heaven to the coronation of Clovis, the 
founder of the monarchy, sanctified him, on the 17th 
of July, in the eyes of his people ; and then the Maid, 
who held her banner at his side, fell on her knees, and, 
declaring her mission ended, craved with tears to be 
dismissed. Bui, unhappily for her, her fartlier pres- 
ence was deemed of too much importance. She was 
induced to remain ; and a patent of nobility for her- 
self and her family, with a pension equal to the in- 
come of a count, was conferred on her. 

The Duke of Bedford was now in a condition of 
great difficulty. He could obtain neither men nor 
money from home, and disaflfection was spreading all 
around him. Yet his abilities rose superior to his dif- 
ficulties : he kept the Duke of Burgundy steady; and, 
having prevailed on the Cardinal of Winchester to lend 
him five thousand men, whom he w^as leading on a 
crusade against the Hussites of Bohemia, he advanced 



1430, 1431.] JOAN OF ARC. 63 

to engage King Charles. The armies came in view 
near Senlis ; but the French, though greatly superior 
in number, thought on Azincourt and Verneuil, and 
feared to engage. Bedford withdrew to Normandy, 
and Charles then advanced on Paris. An attack was 
made on the Fauxbourg of St. Honore on the 12th of 
September, in which the Maid was wounded, and lay 
unnoticed in the ditch till the evening, when she was 
found by a party sent in quest of her. Charles then 
returned to Bourges for the winter. 

The following spring, 1430, the Duke of Burgundy 
laid siege to Compeigne. A force, led by the Maid, 
advanced to its relief. On her way she routed a Bur- 
gundian corps ; and she surprised the post of Marigni 
on the 25th of May ; but, re-enforcements arriving, she 
was forced to retire. In the retreat she repeatedly 
faced about on her pursuers ; but at length an archer 
seized and dragged her off her horse. She surrender- 
ed to the bastard of Vendome, by whom she was con- 
ducted to John of Luxembourg, Avho commanded the 
army. The greatest rejoicings were made for her 
capture ; solemn Te Deum was sung at Paris ; and 
Bedford purchased her at a large price from her cap- 
tors. 

The Bishop of Beauvais, a creature of the English, 
forthwith claimed a right to try her for sorcery and 
imposture, as she was taken in his diocese ; and the 
University of Paris also demanded her trial. She was 
removed to Rouen, where a commission of prelates, 
among whom the Cardinal of Winchester alone was 
English, aided by the inquisitor-general, assembled to 
try her. She was produced before them on the 12th 
of February, 1431, in her male attire, and laden with 
chains, from which she prayed to be relieved. But, 
as she had already attempted to escape, and declared 
she would do so again, her request was refused. She 
was brought sixteen times before the court ; answer- 
ed all the questions put to her calmly and firmly ; 
maintained the reality of her visions, and the truth of 
her mission ; and was condemned as a heretic, and 
sentenced to be delivered over to the secular arm. 



64 HENRY VI [1431. 

The natural love of life then operated in her bosom, 
and she was induced to recant. She owned that her 
visions were illusions of the devil, and sv*'ore never 
again to wear man's attire. Her sentence then was 
commuted to perpetual imprisonment. But in her 
dungeon her visions returned ; or, as it is said, her 
enemies left men's clothes in her cell, and, being 
tempted at the sight to put them on, she was caught 
in them ; and, as now guilty of a relapse, she was de- 
livered over to the secular arm on the 30th of May, 
in that form of mockery and insult which had been 
devised for such occasions. She was led to the mar- 
ket-place, where the pile w^as formed. When the fire 
was kindled she uttered loud exclamations ; and, as 
the flames enveloped her, she was seen embracing a 
crucifix, and calling on Christ for mercy. 

Thus perished, in the twentieth year of her age, the 
heroic Maid of Orleans ; to whom, as an English his- 
torian remarks, "the superstition of the ancients 
would have erected altars." She perished, the vic- 
tim of national enmity and a sanguinary superstition. 
In excuse for her judges and enemies can only be al- 
leged the general belief in sorcery,* in which they 
may have shared :t but for the heartless neglect of 
her by the French king and his nobles, after she had 
served their purpose, no excuse can be off"ered. Pos- 
terity has done justice to the noble Maid ; and by none 

* The tragical delusion, known under the name of " the Salem 
witchcraft," has been frequently referred to by way of reproach to 
our New-England forefathers. But then it should in charity be 
recollected, that the belief in such diabolical agency was then 
common throughout the Christian world ; and it has been esti- 
mated, that not less than one hundred thousand persons of both 
sexes miserably perished, in Germany alone, under the charge of 
witchcraft. Sir James Mackintosh, in treating of this period of 
English history, says, that " both the accusers of the Maid of Or- 
leans and all others at that time believed in the reality of sorcery ; 
and that the most important lesson taught by the event is the value 
of that knowledge, the fruit of free inquiry and fearless reflection, 
which has banished such imaginary crimes from the civilized 
world." — Am. Ed. 

t Bedford, in one of his letters, calls her " a disciple and lyme 
riimb] of the fiende, that used false enchauntments and sorcerie." 



1432-1436.] CONGRESS at arras. 65 

are her virtues more freely acknowledged or more 
warmly eulogized, and her hard fate more sincerely 
deplored, than by the descendants of those whom she 
deprived of dominion in France, and who, in their ig- 
norance and bigotry, were the authors of her death. 

The execution of the Maid produced none of the 
good effects expected from it ; and of as little effect 
was the coronation of the young king at Paris on the 
17th of December. The petty warfare to which the 
want of means confined both parties, was mostly to 
the disadvantage of the English. The death of the 
Duchess of Bedford in 1432, weakened the ties be- 
tween the dukes of Burgundy and Bedford ; and the 
precipitate union of the latter, in the following year, 
with Jacquette of Luxembourg, a vassal of the former, 
greatly widened the breach. Burgundy began to lis- 
ten to proposals for an accommodation with his sov- 
ereign ; but, as he had sworn not to make peace with- 
out the consent of the English, a congress for a gen- 
eral pacification, under the mediation of the pope, was 
proposed to be held at Arras. This congress met in 
1435 ; but, either from the high demands of the Eng- 
lish, or because it was not wished to conciliate them, 
all their proposals were rejected. The Cardinal of 
Winchester and the other Enghsh ministers with- 
drew, and peace was then made between the King of 
France and the Duke of Burgundy. To add to the ill 
fortune of the English, the great Duke of Bedford died 
at Rouen on the 14th of September, while the con- 
gress was sitting at Arras. 

Bedford was succeeded by the Duke of York ; but, 
ere he arrived, the Parisians had admitted the French 
troops into their city ; and Lord Willoughby, the gov- 
ernor, having retired into the Bastile, was there for- 
ced to surrender. Lord Talbot sustained, on various 
occasions, the fame of the English arms ; and when 
the Duke of Burgundy was induced to declare against 
his former aUies, and laid siege to Calais in 1436, the 
Duke of Gloucester forced him to retire ; and the fol- 
lowing year the brave Talbot obliged him to raise the 
siege of Crotoi. A dreadful famine and pestilence 
F2 



66 HENRY VI. [1440, 1441. 

then ravaged both countries during two successive 
years. In 1440 the Constable of France took the city 
of Meaux, while Talbot and the Earl of Somerset re- 
covered Harfleur, which the French had taken eight 
years before. The next event of importance was the 
capture of Pontoise, by Charles in person, in 1441. 
During the two succeeding years the war was prose- 
cuted both in the north and south ; but nothing deci- 
sive occurred. Negotiations were then set on foot ; 
and at length, in 1444, an armistice was concluded for 
two years. 

Having briefly traced thus far the events of the war 
in France, we now return to the internal history of 
England. 

As the young king advanced in years, he developed 
a character the very opposite to that of his father. 
He was mild and serious, but of so slender a capacity 
and so feeble a temper, that it was evident he would 
never be able to govern himself, much less to rule a 
great kingdom ; and that he would be nothing more 
than a mere puppet in the hands of others. The court 
and parhament were divided into the factions of the 
cardinal and his nephew : the former ambitious, ava- 
ricious, and intriguing ; the latter generous, open, and 
impetuous. The great wealth which the cardinal had 
amassed, enabled him to gain the favour of the needy 
king by making him loans of money ; and his influ- 
ence visibly predominated over that of Gloucester. 
He was the advocate of peace with France ; which 
Gloucester, filled with ideas of the glory acquired in 
the late reign, strenuously opposed. The question of 
the liberation of the Duke of Orleans (one of the prin- 
ces taken at Azincourt) tried the strength of the two 
parties in 1439; but the arguments and the opposition 
of Gloucester proved unavaihng. He then stated his 
reasons, in a detailed protest on the rolls of chancery; 
and he entered his barge, to avoid being present when 
that prince was taking the oaths not to act against 
England. 

About two years after, in 1441, the Duchess of 
Gloucester was accused of treason and sorcery. The 



1441.] TRIAL FOR WITCHCRAFT. 67 

charge was, that, with the aid of Roger BoHngbroke, 
one of the duke's chaplains (who was said to deal in 
the black art), and Margery Jourdemain, the witch of 
Eye, she had made a waxen image of the king, to 
whom the duke was next heir, which was exposed to 
a gentle heat : for, according to the rules of magic, as 
it melted away the king's health and strength would 
decay. She owned having applied to the witch for 
love-potions to secure the affections of her husband, 
and having directed Bohngbroke to calculate the du- 
ration of the king's life. The result was, that BoHng- 
broke and Southwell, a canon of St. Paul's, were found 
guilty of treason ; the latter died in prison, and the 
former was executed. The witch was burned as a 
relapsed heretic ; and the duchess, after being made 
to walk three several times through the city without 
a hood, and bearing a lighted taper, was consigned for 
life to the custody of Sir John Stanley. It is proba- 
ble enough that the charges made against the duchess 
were true. We have no direct proof that the cardi- 
nal had any concern in the business ; but it is scarce- 
ly credible that any but the powerful faction of which 
he was the head, would have ventured to offer so dire 
an insult to the first prince of the blood. 

The marriage of the young king, who was now 
three-and-twenty, next came under consideration. It 
was proposed to match him with a daughter of the 
Count of Armagnac, whose territories bordered on 
Guienne ; but this project, which had the full appro- 
val of Gloucester, was counteracted by Pole, earl bf 
Suffolk ; and Cliarles, hearing of it, made the count 
and his family prisoners The cardinal and his party 
then cast their eyes on Margaret, daughter of Rene, 
titular king of Jerusalem and Sicily, and duke of An- 
jou, Maine, and Bar; a woman of great beauty and 
accomplishments, and of masculine energy of mind. 
That she would absolutely rule the feeble king was 
not to be doubted ; and, as she was nearly related to 
Charles, who had always shown much regard for her, 
it was perhaps hoped that she would be the means of 
procuring an honourable peace. Suffolk was sent 



68 HENRY VI. [1445-1447. 

over to negotiate tlie match ; and, of his own author- 
ity, he not merely consented that the princess should 
be taken without dower (a thing, of course, to be ex- 
pected, as Rene was but a royal pauper), but actually 
agreed that Anjou and Maine, which the English still 
held, should be restored to him : that is, in effect, giv- 
en up to the King of France. On Suffolk's return, the 
majority of the council sanctioned what he had done ; 
and he was created a marquis, and sent back to 
espouse the princess as his royal master's proxy, and 
conduct her to England. Henry met and married her 
at Titchfield ; and she was crowned, with great mag- 
nificence, at Westminster, on the 30th of May, 1445. 

The absolute power of Margaret over her husband 
was soon apparent. Suffolk naturally stood high in 
her favour ; and, united with the cardinal and his 
nephew, the Duke of Somerset, they overbore all op- 
position and ruled the kingdom. We are in ignorance 
of the details of affairs for nearly two years; but, on 
the 10th of February, 1447, a parhament met by sum^ 
mons at Bury St. Edmund's, to which the knights of 
the shire were directed to repair in arms ; guards 
were placed round the king's residence ; and the men 
of Suffolk were arrayed. Gloucester came from his 
castle at Devizes; on the second day, the 11th, he 
was arrested on a charge of high treason ; and on the 
28th he was found dead in his, bed. His death was 
ascribed to apoplexy or chagrin by those who main^ 
tained that it was natural :* others', however, asserted 
that he had been murdered. His body, as with Ed- 
ward n., Richard II., and Thomas of Gloucester, was 
exposed to public view; but these we know were all 
murdered. Certain it is, that, at the present day and 
in free countries, state-prisoners do not die thus sud- 
denly and opportunely. It is remarkable that a great 
part of his estates went to Suffolk, and his relatives 
and friends; and that, even before his death, his 
coimty of Pembroke had been granted to that noble.- 

♦ This was the belief of Whethamstede, abbot of St Alban'Sj 
who was very partial to the duke. 



1447.] 



DEATH OF THE CARDINAL. 69 



man in case of his dying without issue. If he was 
murdered, Suffolk beyond doubt was guilty : his death, 
as the chronicler says, may have, been " not unprocu- 
red" by the cardinal, and not unapproved by the young 
queen. The unhappy duchess was refused her dower. 
Five gentlemen of the duke's household were also 
sentenced to death, as sharers in his treasons. They 
were hung up, but immediately cut down and marked 
for quartering ; when Suffolk, who was present, an- 
nounced the king's pardon, and their lives were pre- 
served. 

The Duke of Gloucester was generally lamented ; 
and the memory of the " Good Duke Humphrey," as 
he was called, was long cherished. This prince had 
been honourably distinguished by his patronage of let- 
t-ers. His death, as we shall see, proved the ruin of 
the house of Lancaster, by opening a field to the am- 
bition of a rival family. 

The cardinal, whether guilty or innocent, followed 
his nephew to the grave within six Aveeks ; lament- 
ing, we are told, that money could not purchase life, 
and that he should be thus cut off, when, Gloucester 
being removed, he had hopes of the papal crown. It 
seems no doubt strange that such a notion should be 
entertained by a man eighty years old, and with a 
mortal disease on him ; but both public and private 
life yield abundant instances of similar fatuity. It is 
curious that, somewhat like the Emperor Charles V., 
he caused his obsequies to be celebrated in his pres- 
ence a short time before he died. The character of 
this prelate is thus drawn by the chronicler Hall : 
" More noble of blood than notable in learning, haut 
of stomach and high in countenance, rich above meas- 
ure of all men and to few liberal, disdainful to his kin 
and dreadful to his lovers, preferring money before 
friendship, many things beginning and nothing per- 
forming." 

The surrender of Maine and Anjou, the keys of Nor- 
mandy, was speedily followed by the loss of that 
great province : town after town and castle after cas- 
tle opened their gates or were taken by assault. The 



70 HENRY VI. [1450. 

French troops were then led into Guienne ; no resist- 
ance was offered ; and at length, in 1451, Calais alone 
remained of all the English conquests and possessions 
in France. 

The popular indignation in England was high, and 
was chiefly directed against the favourite Suffolk, now 
a duke. Moleyns, the bishop of Chichester, who had 
had the inglorious task of delivering up Maine to the 
French, was slain in a popular commotion at Ports- 
mouth in 1450 ; and it was said that, before his death, 
he declared that Suffolk was a traitor, and had sold 
Maine to the French ; and that he had boasted of hav- 
ing as much influence in their councils as in the Eng- 
lish. Suffolk resolved to anticipate the stroke that he 
saw was aimed at him. When parliament met, on 
the 22d of January, he rose, and, addressing the king, 
said that his father* and his four brothers had lost 
their lives in the royal service in France ; that he 
himself had served the king thirty-four years in arms ; 
that he had been fifteen years a member of the king's 
council ; that he had been born in England, where all 
his inheritance lay ; and that, therefore, it was absurd 
to suppose he could be a traitor. He then required, 
that any one who would make a charge against him 
should come forward and do so openly. 

A few days after, on the 28th, the commons having 
charged him with supplying his castle of Wallingford 
with provisions and stores, for the purpose of aiding 
the King of France, he was committed to the Tower. 
Ten days later, eight articles of impeachment were 
exhibited against him, of which the first and chief 
was that of having a design to set the crown, with the 
aid of the French king, on the head of his own son, 
whom he had married to the heiress of the late Duke 
of Somerset, " presuming her to be the next inherita- 
ble to the crown." After a month's delay, on the 7tli 
of March, the commons (probably aware of the futility 
of these articles) sent up sixteen new ones : charging 
him Avith embezzling the pubhc money, advising the 

* See above, p. 49. 



1450.] MURDER OF SUFFOLK. 71 

king to make improvident grants, giving office to im<' 
proper persons, procuring pardons for traitors, etc. 
In his defence he treated the first article as ridiculous : 
since, as many peers then present well knew, he had 
intended to marry his son to a daughter of the Earl 
of Warwick ; and as to the cession of Maine and An- 
jou, he declared he was no more guilty (if it was a 
crime) than the other lords of the council or of par- 
liament. The other charges, he said, were frivolous 
and vexatious. Of the second set of articles he took 
no notice. 

As the commons seemed bent on his ruin, the fol- 
lowing expedient was adopted to save him. The 
king, on his own authority, pronouncing him neither 
guilty nor innocent of treason, commanded him, on 
the second impeachment, to quit the kingdom for the 
space of five years. The parliament was then pro- 
rogued. The life of the duke was openly threaten- 
ed, and two thousand people met in St. Giles's fields 
lO intercept him : he, however, escaped down to his 
estates in Suffolk ; and, on the appointed day, the 30th 
of April, he sailed from Ipswich with two small ves- 
sels. He sent a boat into Calais, to know if he might 
land there ; but the boat v/as detained, and the Nich- 
olas of the Tower (a large vessel of the state, carrying 
a hundred and fifty men) came alongside of his bark 
and ordered him on board. " Welcome, traitor, as 
men say," cried the captain, as he came on deck. 
He remained two nights in the Nicholas, his confes- 
sor being with him. He was put to a mock trial be- 
fore the sailors, and condemned to death ; and, on the 
second morning, a small boat with a block, a rusty 
sword, and an executioner, came alongside. The 
duke w^as lowered into it, and his head was severed 
from his body at the sixth blow. His body was 
placed on the sands at Dover, where it was watched 
by the sheriff of Kent, till it was delivered to his wid- 
ow by the king's order. No inquiry was instituted 
into this murder, as the parties who had planned and 
executed it were probably too pov/erful to be brought 
to justice. 



72 HENRY VI. [1450. 

The popular discontent, caused by the feebleness 
and corruption of the government and the disasters in 
France, and perhaps secretly excited by the partisans 
of the house of York, had already broken out in sev- 
eral places. But, immediately after the murder of 
Suffolk, a body of twenty thousand Ketishmen, led by 
a person of uncertain rank and origin,* vv^ho was 
named John Cade, but assumed the name of Morti- 
mer, appeared in arms at Blackheath on the 17th of 
June. Two papers, headed " The Complaints of the 
Commons of Kent," and " The Requests of the Cap- 
tain of the Great Assembly in Kent," w^ere forwarded 
to the king. These contained sundry complaints of 
oppressive government ; and concluded by requiring 
that the relatives of Suffolk should be banished from 
the court, and the dukes of York and Exeter, and some 
others who were named, called to the king's coun- 
cils ; that those who had caused the deaths of the 
Duke of Gloucester, Cardinal Beaufort, and the dukes 
of Exeter and Warwick, and occasioned the loss of 
the dominions in France, should be punished ; that all 
extortions should be abolished, and the great extor- 
tioners brought to justice. 

The king having collected a force, the insurgents 
retired; but when Sir Humphrey Stafford came up 
with them at Sevenoaks, on the 24th, with a part of 
the royal forces, they turned, and defeated and slew 
him. Cade then arrayed himself in the fallen knight's 
armour, and led his men back to Blackheath. The 
king, finding his men not inclined to fight, disbanded 
them and retired to Kenilworth, Lord Scales, with 
one thousand men, undertaking the defence of the 
Tower. Cade then advanced to Southwark on the 1st 
of July ; and, as the citizens had resolved to make 
no resistance, he entered the city in triumph on the 
third, giving strict orders to his men not to pillage, 
and in the evening he led them back to Southwark. 

* He was said to have been an Irishman. In a letter written 
at this time he is called Mr. John Aylmere, physician. See Mack- 
intosh, ii., p. 20, Harpers' edition. Ellis's Letters, i,, 112, second 
series, contemporary document. 



1451.] 



J ACS CADE. 73 



Next day, the 4th, he returned ; and, having obliged 
the mayor and judges to sit at Guildhall, arraigned be- 
fore them Lord Say, the royal chamberlain, who, hav- 
ing vainly pleaded his privileges as a peer, was be- 
headed at the Standard in Cheapside ; and his son-in- 
law Cromer, the sheriff* of Kent, shared his fate. 

Some pillage having been committed on the third 
day, the citizens grew apprehensive ; and they agreed 
to join Lord Scales in defending the bridge. A Gon- 
flict ensued during the night ; and the bridge was taken 
and retaken several times, but finally remained in the 
hands of the citizens. A short truce ensued on the 
6th, during which the two archbishops, who were in 
the Tovs^er, sent the Bishop of Winchester over the 
river, with pardons for those who would return to 
their homes. The pardons were gladly accepted, and 
the insurgents dispersed. But Cade soon repented, 
and collected more men. As their numbers, however, 
were not great, they retired from Southwark ; and, 
quarrehing on the Avay, their leader left them and fled 
towards Lewes, pursued by Men, the sheriff of Kent, 
who slew him on the 9th, in a garden, after an ob- 
stinate defence; Iden received a reward of 1000 
marks ($3200) ; and several of the insurgents were 
afterward executed as traitors, some of whom, it is 
said, confessed that it had been their intention to place 
the Duke of York on the throne. 

The Diike of York was now in Ireland, the govern-^ 
ment of which country had been given to him when 
he was deprived of that of Normandy, which he had 
held for some years, in order to gratify the Duke of 
Somerset, who coveted it. But the measures of this 
nobleman had been uniformly unfortunate ; and his 
surrender of Caen, which belonged to the Duke o( 
York, had exasperated the mind of that prince against 
him. The queen's party resolved to oppose Somer« 
set to the Duke of York. The latter, aware of their 
machinations, suddenly left Ireland, and proceeded to 
his castle at Dudlow, on the marches of Wales ; and, 
having assembled his retainers, set out for London, 
which he reached at thg head of four thousand m^% 

Vol. IL-^G 



74 HENRY VI. [1452. 

though a force under Lord Lisle was sent to intercept 
him. He went to Westminster, knelt before the king, 
complained of the state of the kingdom, and implored 
him to summon a parliament. The king promised to 
do so ; and the duke then retired to his Castle of 
Fotheringay on the 30th of September. Somerset re- 
turned to England in the following month, at the de- 
sire of the queen and her party. 

When parliament met on the 6th of November, 
York and Somerset accused each other; and a bill at 
the same time passed the commons, to attaint the 
memory of the late Duke of Suffolk, and to remove 
from the court the Duchess of Suffolk, the Duke of 
Somerset, and some other lords. The king, as in- 
structed, refused his assent ; and the duchess and 
some others, having demanded a trial, were tried and 
acquitted. For some months altercations in parlia- 
ment, and acts of violence out of it, succeeded. At 
length, the Duke of York repaired to his cas^'e of 
LudLow, and raised the tenants of the house of Mor- 
timer. He marched towards London in 1452, de- 
manding a reformation of the government and the 
removal of Somerset. Finding the gates of the city 
closed against him, he turned into Kent. The king 
followed at the head of a superior force, and the duke 
encamped at Dartford, and the king at Blackheath. 
A parley ensued ; Somerset was placed under arrest, 
and York dismissed his army; and, on the 1st of 
March, he visited the king in his tent, unarmed. Here, 
as he renewed his charges against Somerset, that no- 
bleman stepped out from behind a curtain and offered 
to maintain his innocence ; and York, as he retired, 
was arrested and carried to London. Somerset ad- 
vised an instant trial and execution ; but the king was 
averse from blood, and the news of the approach of 
York's son, the Earl of March, with an army, intimi- 
dated the council. The duke was dismissed on re- 
newing his oath of fealty, and retired to his castle of 
Wigmore. 

In the autumn of this year, the Gascons, weary of 
their new masters, and finding the demand for their 



1453-1454.] LOSS op guienne. 75 

wines in England on the decline, sent over a deputa- 
tion, offering to return to their allegiance. The ven- 
erable Talbot, now Earl of Shrewsbury, was sent with 
a force of four thousand men ; and his son, Lord Lisle, 
followed with an equal number. The whole Borde- 
lais, with Chatillon in Perigord, submitted before the 
winter. The next year, 1453, the Count of Penthievre 
invested Chatillon with twenty-five thousand men. 
Talbot hastened to its relief; and the French retired 
to an intrenched camp, defended by three hundred 
pieces of cannon. Talbot ordered an assault on the 
20th of July. In the action his horse was killed under 
him, and his leg was broken ; and, r!s he lay, he was 
slain with a bayonet, while his son lost his life in at- 
tempting to rescue him, and the army dispersed and 
fled. Bordeaux, defended by six thousand citizens 
and four thousand English, held out till famine com- 
pelled it to surrender. The English were permitted 
to depart with their property, the citizens were re- 
ceived to favour, and Guienne was lost for ever to 
England. 

Though this loss was a real gain, it was not so con- 
sidered by the nation ; and it augmented the odium 
under which the queen and her party lay. The birth 
of a prince, however, on the 13th of October, extin- 
guished the hopes which the Duke of York had en- 
tertained of a peaceable succession ; and, instead of 
lightening, only darkened the political horizon. It 
was openly said by the people that he was not the 
king's son : " his noble mother," says the chronicler, 
" sustained not a little disclaunder of the common 
people." The duke, however, was too moderate to 
take any direct advantage of such rumours ; and, had 
his enemies been equally so, the subsequent disasters 
might perhaps have been averted. Unfortunately for 
the queen's party, the king, soon after the birth of the 
prince, fell into such a state of bodily as well as mental 
debility, that he could no longer be made to enact the 
royal pageant with any propriety. This caused the 
return of the Duke of York to the cabinet, and Som- 
erset was speedily committed to the Tower. Early 



76 HENRY VI. [1454. 

in the following year, 1454, a committee of the peers 
having ascertained the total incapacity of the king, 
York was appointed " Protector of the Church and 
Kingdom" till the king should recover or the prince 
be of age. 

On the following Christmas, however, the king hav- 
ing shown some glimpse of reason, advantage was 
taken of it to make him resume his authority ; and he 
forthwith deprived York of the protectorate, and re- 
leased Somerset, and restored him to favour, York 
retired to his estates ; and soon after, being joined by 
the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Salisbury, and his 
8on the Earl of Warwick, he advanced towards Lon- 
don at the head of three thousand men. The royal 
phantom moved to meet them with a force of about 
two thousand men, and had only proceeded as far as 
St. Alban's, when, on the 22d of May, the banners of 
the Yorkists were seen. The Duke of Buckingham 
being sent to demand the cause of their appearance 
in arms, they replied by professions of the utmost 
loyalty, but required that Somerset and his asso- 
ciates should be given up to them as prisoners. Hen- 
ry was made to return a stern reply; commanding 
them to disperse, and declaring his resolution to die 
rather than surrender any lord who was faithful to 
hira, York forthwith assaulted the barriers, which 
were gaUantly defended by Lord Cliftbrd. Warwick, 
in the mean time, forced his way through the gardens 
into the town ; the barriers were soon burst, and the 
royalists turned and fled. This scuffle, which is 
dignified with the name of the battle of St. Alban's, 
cost the king's party the lives of Somerset, Nor- 
thumberland, Clifford, and about six score others.* 
Buckingham and his son were wounded, as also was 
the king himself in the neck. He took refuge in the 
house of a tanner, where he was waited on by York 
with all huraihty, and conducted to the abbey. 

* We have here a glaring instance of how little the numbers 
given by late chroniclers are to be relied on. The number of the 
plain in the text is from the letter of one of the Pastons, who had 
hem in the battle : while Hall gives it at 8000, and Stow at 6000. 



1456-1458.] YORKISTS and Lancastrians. 77 

Writs were immediately issued in the king's name 
for a parliament ; and when it met, on the 9th of July, 
the royal idiot appeared seated on his throne, and pro- 
nounced York and his friends guiltless of the slaughter 
of St. Alban's, as their letters, explaining their views 
and motives, had been kept back by the arts of the 
late Duke of Somerset. The parliament was then 
prorogued. When it met again on the 12th of No- 
vember, the Duke of York, at the instance of the 
commons, was once more declared protector, in 
nearly the same terms as before. But this protec- 
torate was also of brief duration; for, on the reas- 
sembling of pariiament on the 14th of January, 1456, 
Henry was so well, that the queen and her party had 
a sufficient pretext for asserting his sanity ; and he 
went in person to the house, on the 25th of Februa- 
ry, and revoked the duke's commission. The prince 
made no opposition ; and the royal puppet and his au- 
thority were henceforth wielded by the queen and her 
party. 

During two years the ill blood continued to ferment 
on both sides ; the nation gradually divided into the 
two parties of Yorkists and Lancastrians, and a civil 
war was evidently on the eve of breaking out. Still 
the primate Bourchier and some other moderate men 
thought that the evil might be averted ; and the king, 
at their suggestion, in 1458, directed that the heads of 
both parties should meet in London, to compose the 
feuds caused by the affray at St. Alban's. They 
therefore repaired thither with their retainers. The 
Yorkists were quartered within, the Lancastrians with- 
out the city ; and the mayor, with five thousand armed 
citizens, was to keep the peace. York and his friends 
met every morning at the Blackfriars, the other party 
at the Whitefriars ; the primate and other prelates 
went between them ; and the proceedings were com- 
municated to the king and the judges at Berkhamstead 
in the evening. An award was finally made, to which 
both agreed ; and the next day Henry went to St. 
Paul's with his whole court, the queen being led by 
the Duke of York, and the lords of each party walk* 
G2 



78 HENRY VI. [1458. 

jng arm-in-arm, to exhibit their reconciliation to the 
eyes of the people. 

fcsmall, however, is the force of reconciliations, when 
ambition, revenge, and other strong passions are at 
work. Not long after, on the 9th of November, as 
Warwick was attending the court, a quarrel arose be- 
tween one of his and one of the king's servants, in 
which the latter being wounded, his fellows armed 
themselves with swords, spits, and forks, and assailed 
Warwick on his way from the council to the barge, so 
that he escaped with difficulty out of their hands. 
Thinking that his hfe was no longer safe, and strongly 
suspecting the queen, he retired to his castle of War- 
wick, and thence went to Calais, of which place he 
was governor. All confidence was now at an end ; 
both parties prepared for arms ; and a civil war, which, 
was to fill England with blood and misery, was no lour- 
ger to be averted. 

As the Duke of York now first advanced his claim 
to the crown, we will pause in our narrative to exam- 
ine the state of the case between him and the king. 

The king derived his title from Henry IV., who was 
undoubtedly raised to the throne by the choice of the 
nation, His house had now exercised dominion for 
sixty years, and had received repeated and voluntary 
oaths of allegiance from the whole nation, and from 
the successive heads of the house of York : it had, 
therefore, everything on its side except hereditary 
right, But if sixty years' undisturbed possession did 
not suffice to efface any claims to the contrary, what 
length of time would suffice 1 And how, therefore, 
could any descendant of Edw^ard HI, have a better or 
so good a claim as the King of Scots, for instance, 
who was the representative of the Saxon line 1 Nay, 
Wales, as it has been said, might send forth descend- 
fints of British princes to assert a right of still more 
remote antiquity, of which force alone had deprived 
them, To reasoning of this kind the Yorkists had 
only to oppose the doctrine of indefeasible hereditary 
right.* But their chief reliance was on the amiablo 

* Ygrh was descen4ed on the father's side from the yoHngest 



1459.] BATTLE OP BLORE HEATH. 79 

and popular character of their chief, and on the odium 
which the queen and her party had drawn on them- 
selves by their arbitrary and oppressive government ; 
for the innocent king was to the last an object of pop- 
ular favour. The strength of the Yorkists lay in Lon- 
don and the adjoining counties, and, in general, among 
the middUng and lower orders. The duke's main sup- 
porters among the nobility were his brother-in-law, 
Neville earl of Sahsbury, his son the earl of War- 
wick, and Mowbray, earl of Norfolk ; but the far larger 
portion of the nobility were faithful to the king ; and 
" the rose of Lancaster blushed upon the banners of 
the Staffords, the Percies, the Veres, the Hollands, 
the Courtneys,"* the CUffords, the Talbots, and other 
illustrious names. As the red rose was the cogni- 
zance of the house of Lancaster, and the white that of 
York, the war is named that of the Roses. 

To return to the narrative. A plan for a simulta- 
neous rising was arranged between York, Salisbury, 
and Warwick. The court, aware of the coming con- 
test, distributed in profusion collars of white swans, 
the badge of the young prince, a,nd invited the king's 
friends to meet him in arms at Leicester. The win- 
ter was spent in preparations on both sides ; but the 
ensuing spring and summer of 1459 passed away in 
inactivity. At length Salisbury set out from his cas- 
tle of Middleham, in Yorkshire, to join the Duke of 
York at Ludlow; while Lord Audley lay, with ten 
thousand men, at Blore Heath, in Staffordshire, to 
intercept him. Salisbury, whose force was small, 
feigned a flight, and Audley pursued. Salisbury cross- 
ed a rapid stream in a valley on the 23d of Septem- 
ber ; and, when one half of the pursuers had crossed 
over it, he turned and completely defeated them. 

son of Edward III., on the niother's side from Lionel, that mon- 
arch's third son. 

* Hallam, Middle Ages, p. 446, et seq., Harpers' ed. This au- 
thor's judicious remarks on this point should be read, and also 
those of Mackintosh. See also a valuable note in Turner's His- 
tory of England (vol. iii., 171, 8vo edit.), showing how almost 
every dynasty since the Conquest has reigned by parljameritary, 
in oppositioij to hereditary, right. 



80 HENRY VI. [1459-1460. 

Audley and two thousand men were slain, and Lord. 
Dudley and several others were taken. Salisbury met 
the duke at Ludlow, where they were soon joined by 
Warwick, with a large body of veterans from Calais 
under Sir John Blount and Sir Andrew Trollop. The 
royal army of sixty thousand men in the mean time 
was advancing from Worcester. Offers of pardon, if 
they submitted, were sent to the Yorkists ; who replied, 
that they had only taken up arms in their own de- 
fence, and were loyal to the king. Both sides pre- 
pared for action ; but, in the night of the 13th of Oc- 
tober, Trollop went over to the king with his veterans ; 
and his defection caused such distrust and dismay 
among the Yorkists, that they separated without 
striking a blow. York retired to Ireland; and his 
son the Earl of March, Salisbury, and Warwick, fled 
to Devon, and thence to Calais. 

A parliament was held shortly after at Coventry, 
and an act of attainder was passed against York, 
Salisbury, their wives and children, and Warwick, 
Lord Clinton, and some others. Their party, howev- 
er, did not remit in its activity ; and the following June, 
1460, when Warwick landed in Kent with a small 
force of fifteen hundred men, he was joined by the 
primate, by Lord Cobham, and by most of the gentry 
of the county. By the time he reached London, he 
found himself at the head of twenty-five thousand 
men. Tlie city gladly received him, and he then set 
out to engage the royal forces, which lay at North- 
ampton. Lord Grey de Ruthyn having betrayed his 
post to the Yorkists on the 10th of July, they obtain- 
ed an easy victory ; the Duke of Buckingham, the 
Earl of Shrewsbury, Lord Beaumont, and about three 
hundred knights and gentlemen being slain on the 
royal side. Henry, who was found in his tent, was 
treated with every mark of respect by the victors ; 
but the queen and the prince escaped into Wales, and 
thence sailed to Scotland. 

Henry was conveyed to London, where he was 
made to issue writs for a new parliam.ent. It had 
hardly met and reversed the acts of that of Coventiy, 



1460.] THE DUKE OF YORK's CLAIM. 81 

when the Duke of York, who had returned from Ire- 
land, reached London at the head of five hundred 
horsemen, and, going straight to Westminster, and 
passing through the hah, entered the upper house, 
and there stood with liis hand on the throne. The 
primate asked him if he would not visit the king : he 
replied, " I know no one in this realm who ouglit not 
rather to visit me." He then went and occupied the 
royal apartments. Six days after, on the 16th of 
October, the duke sent to the chancellor a statement 
of his claim to the crown, as representative of Lionel 
duke of Clarence, requesting a speedy answer. The 
chancellor asked if this paper should be read : the 
peers replied that it should, but not answered without 
the king's command. Next day they went in a body 
to the king, who, having briefly and strongly stated 
the foundations of his rights, directed them to search 
for proofs against the claim of the duke. The lords 
then sent for the judges ; but they declined to inter- 
x'ere, as by their office they were not to act as counsel 
between party and party. The king's sergeants and 
attorney also sought to excuse themselves ; but their 
excuses were not admitted, and they were ordered to 
draw up an answer. In this were urged the oaths of 
fealty taken to the present family, and the various 
acts of parliament and entails of the cro\vn. The 
duke's counsel replied, that unlawful oaths are not 
binding, and that acts of parliament and entails are of 
no force against the rightful heir. The lords finally 
proposed a compromise : that the duke's claim should 
be acknowledged, but that Henry should retain the 
crown for his life, and, at his death, it should pass to 
the duke and his heirs. To this both agreed; the 
royal assent was given to a bill to this effect, and the 
king, wearing the crown, went in state to St. Paul's, 
the duke attending as heir-apparent. 

The high-spirited queen, however, would not thus 
tamely surrender the rights of her son. She was 
now in the north, Avhere the Earl of Northumberland, 
and the lords Cliff"ord, Dacres, and Neville had armed 
their followers in her cause ; and at York they were 



82 HENRY VI. [1460. 

joined by the Duke of Somerset and the Earl of 
Devon, with their tenants from the west. The Duke 
of York set out, with about five thousand men, to op- 
pose them ; and a few days before Christmas he ar- 
rived at Sandal Castle, near Wakefield. Here Salis- 
bury and his other friends advised him to wait till the 
Earl of March should arrive with succours ; but, wheth- 
er urged by his chivalrous spirit, or from some other 
cause, he accepted the challenge of the enemy, and, 
on the 30th of December, marched into Wakefield 
Green, where he was instantly assailed on all sides. 
The rout of the Yorkists was speedy and complete, 
and upward of two thousand men lay on the Green. 
The duke himself being taken prisoner, his captors 
led him to an ant-hill, and, placing him on it as a 
throne, set a crown of twisted grass on his head, and 
bending the knee to him in derision, cried, " Hail, 
king without a kingdom ! Hail, prince without a peo- 
ple !" They then struck off" his head, which Chfford 
presented on a pole to the queen, saying, " Madam, 
your war is done ; here is the ransom of your king." 
She burst into laughter ; and, when she had glutted 
her eyes with the sight, sent it to be fixed on the walls 
of York. Salisbury and twelve other of the captive 
leaders were beheaded the next day at Pontefract. 
In the pursuit, Lord Clifford had overtaken on the 
bridge the Earl of Rutland, a youth of about seven- 
teen years of age,* whom his tutor, a venerable 
priest, was conveying to a place of safety. Struck 
by his appearance and attire, he loudly demanded who 
he was ; and the terrified lad fell on his knees to sue 
for mercy. " Save him," cried the tutor ; " he is the 
son of a prince, and, mayhap, may do you good here- 
after." "The son of York!" shouted the ruthless 
savage : " as thy father slew mine, so will I slay 
thee and all of thy kin ;" and plunged his dagger into 
the bosom of the helpless supphant. 
The Earl of March was at Gloucester when he 

* The Earl of Rutland is usually said to have been only twelve 
years of age ; but he was York's second son. 



1461.] 



BATTLE OF WAKEFIELD. 83 



heard of the defeat and death of his father, in 1461. 
As he had with him a force of twenty-three thousand 
men, he was preparing to march against the queen ; 
but the earls of Pembroke and Ormond hung on his 
rear with a body of Welsh and Irish. He therefore 
turned and gave them battle, and totally defeated 
them at Mortimer's Cross, near Hereford, on the 1st 
of February. Ormond and Pembroke escaped ; but 
Owen Tudor, the father of the latter, was taken ; and, 
with some other leaders, beheaded next day at Here- 
ford, in retaliation for the executions at Wakeheld. 
The queen, in the mean time, advanced towards Lon- 
don with her borderers, to whom their leaders had 
promised the pillage of the country south of the Trent. 
Warv/ick and the Duke of Norfolk, taking the king 
with them, placed themselves at St. Alban's, to op- 
pose her. An engagement ensued on the 17th of 
February, which ended in the defeat of the Yorkists, 
who lost two thousand men. Henry was left in his 
tent with Lord Bonville and Sir Thomas Kyriel, to 
whom he had promised his protection ;* but Marga- 
ret little heeded his promises, and they were behead- 
ed the next day. Her troops pillaged the couiitiy 
round; but London and the adjacent counties remain- 
ed steady lo the cause of York. Edward advanced, 
and united his forces with those of Warwick ; and 
soon the queen found it necessary to return with all 
speed to the north ; so that, on the 25th of February, 
Edward entered London in triumph. A few days af- 
ter. Lord Falconbridge and the Bishop of Exeter ha- 
rangued the people assembled in St. John's Fields, 
Clerkenwell, on the bad title of Henry, and the good 
one of Edward, to the crown. Falconbridge then 
asked them if they would have Henry of Lancaster 
for their king ; and loud cries of " No, no !" arose : 
he then asked if they would love and obey Edward 
earl of March as their sovereign lord : " Yea, yea !" 
cried they ; " King Edward !" and shouted and clap- 
ped their hands. Next day, March the 4th, in a great 

* This is a disputed point. 



84 HENRY VI. [1461. 

council, it was resolved that Henry, by joining the 
queen's forces, had violated the award, and therefore 
forfeited the crown ; and Edward was forthwith pro- 
claimed king. 

Under the Lancastrian princes, the importance of 
the House of Commons was continually on the in- 
crease ; and the influencing of the choice of members 
became a matter of great consequence in the eyes of 
the sovereign and the nobility.* Hitherto the elec- 
tions seem to have been very irregular, all who chose 
to attend being privileged to vote. 

In the eighth year of Henry VI., an act was passed 
limiting the elective franchise in the counties to free- 
holders of lands of the annual value of forty shillings* 
The statute thus commences : " Whereas the elec- 
tions of knights of shires have now of late been made 
by very great, outrageous, and excessive numbers of 
people dwelhng within the same counties, of which 
the most part was people of small substance and of 
no value, yet pretending to a right equal to the best 
knights and esquires, whereby manslaughters, riots, 
batteries, and divisions among the gentlemen and 
other people of the same counties shaU very likely 
rise and be," &c. 

* See the Paston Letters, passim^ 



1461.] BATTLE OF TOWTON. 85 



CHAPTER XII. 

EDWARD IV.* 

1461-1483. 

Battle of Towton ; of Hedgeley Moor and Hexham.— Capture 
of Henry. — Marriage of Edward. — Risings of the Peasantry. — 
Flight of Edward; his Return.— Battle of Barnet; of Tewkes- 
bury.— Death of Henry ; of Clarence and of the King. 

The new monarch found it necessary to take the 
field again in a few days. The Lancastrians, to the 
number of sixty thousand men, having taken their 
station at York, Edward and Warwick left London to 
engage them ; and, when they reached Pontefract, 
their forces amounted to forty-nine thousand men. 
As it was of importance to secure the passage of the 
Aire at Ferrybridge, Lord Fitzwalter was sent forward 
for that purpose. He effected his object; but, shortly 
after, he was attacked and slain by Lord Cliftbrd; 
who, in his turn, was within a few hours slain by 
Lord Falconbridge, and the passage was recovered. 
The Yorkists then crossed the river ; and the next 
morning, March 29th, in the plain between the villa- 
ges of Towton and Saxton, a general engagement 
commenced, under a heavy fall of snow, which drove 
in the faces of the Lancastrians. Both sides fought 
with obstinacy till towards evening, when the Lan- 
castrians gave way :f they retired in good order till 
they reached the river Cock, where they broke and 
fled in all directions. Edward had issued orders to 
give no quarter ; and nearly one half of the Lancas- 

* Authorities same as before, and Commines. 

t According to the fragment published by Hearne, the action 
began at four o'clock in the evening of Saturday, March 29th, was 
contmued through the night, and was decided the next day (Palm 
Sunday) at noon, by the arrival of the Duke of Norfolk with a 
re-enforcement to Edward. 

Vol. II.— H 



86 EDWARD IV. [1462 

trians perished.* The Earl of Northumberland and 
six barons were slain ; the earls of Devon and Wilt- 
shire were taken in the pursuit, and the dukes of 
Somerset and Exeter reached York, whence they 
conveyed the king and queen to the borders. 

The morning after this decisive victory Edward 
entered York. The heads of his father and friends 
were taken down from the gates by his orders, and 
replaced by those of Devon and Wiltshire. Thence 
he proceeded to Newcastle, and then returned to 
London, where he was crowned with great magnifi- 
cence on the 29th of June. On this occasion he cre- 
ated his younger brothers, George and Richard, dukes 
of Clarence and Gloucester. A parliament met im- 
mediately ; the last three kings were declared usurp- 
ers, and their grants, with a few exceptions, w-ere re- 
voked ; but their judicial acts, and the honours con- 
ferred by them, were ratified. A bill of attainder was 
then passed against Henry, his wife and son, Somer- 
set, Exeter, Northumberland, Devon, Wiltshire, and 
other nobles, knights, esquires, and priests, to the 
number of one hundred and fifty. The avowed ob- 
ject was the annihilation of the Lancastrian party : it 
may also have been intended to provide rewards for 
the victors. 

Meantime Margaret was making every effort to re- 
new the contest. By the surrender of Berwick the 
aid of the Scots was obtained ; and the queen then 
sailed, in 1462, to the Continent, to try to raise men 
and money. From the Duke of Brittany she obtained 
a present of twelve thousand crowns ;f and Louis XL 
of France lent her twenty thousand, on the security 
of Calais ; and gave Breze, the seneschal of Norman- 
dy, permission to aid her with two thousand men. 
After an absence of five months, she landed with her 
French auxiliaries in Northumberland. Both Enghsh 
and Scottish borderers repaired to her standard ; the 

* The number of the slain on both sides was stated variously 
at from 30,000 to 37,000. 

i The French crown was of the value of six livres or francs, 
equal to one dollar and thirteen cents. — Am. Ed, 



1463, 1464.] GENEROSITY OF A BANDIT. 87 

castles of Alnwick, Bamborough, and Dunstanburgh 
were taken; and fortune seemed to smile. But when 
Warwick appeared with twenty thousand men, and 
rumour told of the approach of Edward with a larger 
force, her troops lost courage, and dispersed to garri- 
son these three fortresses. The queen embarked with 
the French ; a storm scattered her fleet ; and she and 
Breze, after witnessing the loss of her treasure in the 
tempest, escaped in a fishing-boat to Berwick. Ed- 
ward advanced to Newcastle, and then returned to 
London, leaving Warwick to besiege the fortresses. 
After an obstinate resistance they were surrendered, 
on condition of the Duke of Somerset, Sir Richard 
Percy, and some others being pardoned, and restored 
to their estates and honours, and the garrisons being 
conducted to Scotland. 

During this winter-campaign, as Margaret, her son, 
and Breze were riding through a forest, they were 
seized and robbed by a party of bandits. While the 
robbers were quarrelling about the booty, the queen 
contrived to steal away with the prince, and plunged 
into the depths of the wood. As she was wandering 
about, she encountered a single robber. Escape was 
hopeless ; and she boldly went up to him and said, 
" Friend, I commit to thy care the son of thy king." 
The outlaw was not without feelings of generosity : 
he accepted the charge, and conducted them in safety 
to their friends.* In the spring of 1463, the queen, 
the Duke of Exeter, Brez6, and two hundred others, 
sailed to Flanders. She thence proceeded to her fa- 
ther's duchy of Bar, where she remained watching 
the progress of events. Henry, in the mean time, 
was protected by a Welsh knight in his castle. 

Still the spirit of the Lancastrians was unbroken ; 
and the next year, 1464, Henry was summoned from 
his retreat, to put himself at the head of a body of ex- 
iles and Scots. Somerset and Percy, heedless of 
their oaths, resumed their arms ; and Sir Ralph Grey, 
a Yorkist, thinking himself ill used by Edward, seized 

* Monstrelet, iii., 29. 



88 EDWARD IV. [1465 

the castle of Alnwick. But Lord Montague, Warwick' 
brother, warden of the east marches, defeated and kill 
ed Percy at Hedgeley Moor, on the 25th of April ; and, 
on the 15th of May, at the head of four thousand men, 
he advanced against Somerset, who was encamped 
with a small force of not more, it is said, than five 
hundred men, on the banks of the Dilswater, near 
Hexham. The defeat of the Lancastrians was imme- 
diate. Somerset was taken, and beheaded the same 
day ; and a similar fate befell the lords Roos and Hun- 
ge'rford, and others. Grey was taken at Bamborough, 
and was executed as a traitor at Doncaster. 

The unfortunate Henry, who had been at Hexham, 
had fled before the arrival of Montague. He was 
closely pursued ; and three of his servants were ta- 
ken in their gowns of blue velvet, one of them bear- 
ing his cap of state, which was embroidered with two 
crowns and adorned with pearls. He, however, esca- 
ped into Lancashire, where he was concealed by his 
friends for more than a year. At length, a treacher- 
ous monk gave information of his retreat to Sir James 
Harrington, who seized him as he was sitting at din- 
ner at Waddington Hall in 1465, and he was forthwith 
sent to London. At Islington he was met by War- 
wick. Orders were given that no respect should be 
shown him ; his legs were tied under the belly of the 
horse on which he was placed; he was led thrice 
round the pillory, and then consigned to the Tower, 
where, however, he was treated with humanity. The 
services of Montague were rewarded by the earldorn 
of Northumberland. Fresh attainders were passed 
against the Lancastrians, whose estates went to re- 
ward the victors ; but these were followed by an act 
of amnesty; treaties of alliance were formed with 
most foreign princes ; and Edward, deeming himself 
secure on the throne, launched into pleasure, leaving 
the charge of affairs to the Nevilles ; namely, War- 
wick, Northumberland, and their brother George, 
archbishop of York and chancellor. 

The Nevilles were urgent with the king to marry 
some foreign princess; but it Avas not now in his 



1465.] MARRIAGE OF EDWARD. 89 

power to comply. As he was oiie day hunting in 
Northamptonshire, he called to visit Jacquette, duch- 
ess-dowager of Bedford,* who had given her hand to 
Sir Richard Woodville, or Wydeville, of Grafton in 
that county. While he was there, the duchess's 
daughter Elizabeth, the widow of Sir John Grey of 
Groby, who had fallen on the Lancastrian side in the 
second battle of St. Alban's, came and threw herself 
at his feet, imploring him to reverse her husband's at- 
tainder in favour of her innocent children. Edward 
was moved to pity ; for, though the countenance of 
the fair suiter was not beautiful, her manners were 
graceful and winning, her form elegant, and her lan- 
guage and sentiments distinguished by wit and pro- 
priety. Her suit was listened to with favour; and 
love soon took the place of pity. About the end of 
April, 1464, he repaired to Stoney Stratford; and, 
early in the morning of May-day, he stole over to 
Grafton, where a priest united him to the fair relict, 
in the presence of his clerk, the duchess, and two of 
her female attendants. Soon after he set out for the 
north ; but the battles of Hedgeley Moor and Hexham 
had occurred before he arrived. 

On his return, Edward resolved to acknowledge his 
wife as queen. A general council of the peers having 
met, on his summons, at Reading Abbey the following 
Michaelmas, Elizabeth was led in by the Duke of Clar- 
ence and the Earl of Warwick, and was by all saluted 
as queen. In May of the following year, 1465, her 
uncle, James of Luxembourg, having been invited 
over to give her dignity in the eyes of those who ob- 
jected to the humbleness of her birth, the ceremony 
of her coronation was performed. Her influence over 
the king was soon apparent in the advancement of her 
family: her father was created Earl Rivers,! and made 
first treasurer, and then lord high constable ; her five 
sisters were married to young noblemen of the high- 
est rank ; her brother Antony to the heiress of Lord 

* See above, p. 65. 

t He had been created Baron Rivers in the late reign. 

H2 



90 EDWARD IV. £1467-1469. 

Scales ; and her brother John, a youth of twenty, to 
the wealthy dowager Duchess of Norfolk, now in her 
eightieth year! To the queen's own son, Thomas, 
Avas given the king's niece, the heiress of Exeter; 
and he was created Marquis of Dorset, 

These promotions of the upstart Woodvilles natu- 
rally excited the jealousy of the Nevilles, who liad 
expected to have a monopoly of power under the 
prince whom they had placed on the throne ; and the 
king, on his side, urged by the Woodvilles, became 
gradually estranged from them. The change was 
first manifested on the occasion of the marriage of 
the king's sister Margaret, in 1467. It w^as proposed 
to give her to the son and heir of the Duke of Bur- 
gundy, Warwick, who was the avowed enemy of 
that prince, was for an alliance with one of the French 
princes. He was allowed to go over to Rouen, to 
treat with Louis XI. for the purpose ; but, during hia 
absence, negotiations were carried on with the court 
of Burgundy, which ended in the marriage of Marga- 
ret into that house, W^arwick, on his return, retired in 
discontent to his castle of Middleham : a reconcihation, 
however, was effected between the king and him ; and 
when the princess was conducted by her brother to 
the coast, she rode behind the Earl of Warwick. 

The next transaction of importance which we meet, 
is the marriage of the Duke of Clarence with the 
daughter of Warwick in 1469, in spite of the efforts 
of the king to prevent it. The marriage took place 
at Calais on the Uth of July ; and it is singular that, 
at this very time, an insurrection of the peasantry 
broke out in Yorkshire : the county in which the in- 
fluence of the Nevilles chiefly lay. By a law of King 
Athelstan, the hospital of St. Leonard's, near York, 
had a right to a thrave* of corn off each ploughland 
in the county. The peasantry complained of abuse 
of these funds, and at length refused payment ; the 
officers distrained and imprisoned them ; they flew to 

* Thrave is an old English word signifying two dozen ; mean- 
ing here that number of sheaves or bundles of corn.— ^m. Ed- 



1469.] BATTLE OF EDGECOTE. 91 

arras, and, to the number of fifteen thousand, under 
one Robert Hilyard, commonly called Robin of Redes- 
dale, marched agamst York. They were there, how- 
ever, attacked and routed by the Earl of Northumber- 
land ; and their leader was taken and executed. But 
the insurrection now changed its character : the sons 
of the lords Fitz-Hugh and Latimer, the nephew and 
cousin of Warwick, aided by the advice of Sir John 
Conyers, an experienced officer, placed themselves at 
the head of it. The removal of the Woodvilles, the 
fancied authors of all the taxes and oppressions of 
which the people complained, was the declared object. 
The name of Warwick was freely used ; and, in a few 
days, the insurgents amounted to sixty thousand men. 

The king was in great perplexity. He wrote to 
Clarence and Warwick to hasten from Calais to him ; 
Lord Herbert advanced from Wales with eight thou- 
sand men, and Lord Stafford joined him at Banbury 
with five thousand ; but, a dispute arising about their 
quarters at an inn, Stafford retired to some distance, 
and the rebels next day, the 26th of July, fell on Her- 
bert at Edgecote, and killed him and five thousand of 
his men. In the pursuit, the victors found Lord Riv- 
ers and his son John in the forest of Dean, and brought 
them to Northampton, where they were executed, by 
a real or pretended order from Clarence and Warwick. 

These two noblemen had now arrived. They met 
the king at Olney, and actually placed him in confine- 
ment at Middleham, under the custody of the Arch- 
bishop of York.* But a rising of the Lancastrians on 
the borders! obhged them to come to terms with him, 
and set him at liberty. This was followed by a gen- 
eral pardon ; and by the promise of the king's eldest 
daughter to George, son of Northumberland, and pre- 
sumptive heir to the three Nevilles, who was also 
created Duke of Bedford, to raise him nearer in rank 

* The tnith of this is proved by Lingard, in opposition to Carle, 
Hume, and Henry. 

t It was headed by Sir Humphrey Neville. After the battle of 
Hexham, this knight had remained for five years concealed in a 
cavern, opening into the river Derwent. 



92 EDWARD IV. [1470. 

to the young princess. It would seem, however, that 
the reconciUation was anything but sincere ; for not 
long after, in 1470, when the king went to an enter- 
tainment given by the archbishop at his seat, the 
Moor, in Herts, as he was washing his hands before 
supper, it was whispered to him that one hundred 
men were lying in ambush, to seize and carry him 
off. Without any inquiry, he stole to the door, mount- 
ed his horse, and rode to Windsor. Under the media- 
tion of the king's mother, however, a new reconcilia- 
tion was effected. 

Just at this time occurred a rising in Lincolnshire, 
headed by Sir Robert Welles. The extortion of the 
royal purveyors was the ostensible, and probably the 
real ground. How far Warwick was concerned in it 
cannot be said with certainty : Edward, however, 
gave him and Clarence a commission to raise forces. 
Lord Welles, the father of Robert, fled to the sanctu- 
ary when summoned to the royal presence : he and 
Sir Thomas Dymock, his companion, however, came 
forth on the promise of a pardon. But, as Sir Robert 
did not lay down his arms, the king, in violation of his 
word, beheaded them both. On the 12th of March 
he gave the insurgents a defeat at Erpingham in Rut- 
landshire,* and their leaders, Welles and Sir Charles 
Delalaunde, were taken and beheaded. Before their 
execution, they declared that their object had been 
to aid the earl and duke in placing the latter on the 
throne ; that they had acted under their instructions, 
but had given battle contrary to their advice ; since, 
if they had waited a few days, Warwick was to have 
joined them with twenty thousand men. 

Clarence and Warwick, on the defeat of the rebels, 
moved towards Manchester, in hopes that the Lord 
Stanley, who was married to Warwick's sister, would 
join them. On his refusal they turned southward ; 
and, being proclaimed traitors, and pursued by the 
royal forces, they embarked at Dartmouth on the 15th 

* This was popularly called the battle of Lose-coat Field : be- 
cause the fugitives threw away their coats of-mail to escape. 



1470.] WARWICK AND CLARENCE. 93 

of April, and made sail for Calais. But Vauclerc, a 
Gascon, whom Warwick had left in command there, 
had resolved to play a double game ; and, while he 
turned the guns on them, and even refused to allow 
the Duchess of Clarence, Avho was ill, to land, he sent 
secretly to assure Warwick of his own fidelity, but to 
inform him that the garrison, meanwhile, could not be 
depended on : at the same time, he sent protestations 
of his loyalty to the king. W^arwick, feigning to be 
satisfied, sailed for Normandy, capturing what Flem- 
ish vessels he met ; and, landing at Harfleur, he and 
Clarence proceeded by invitation to the French court 
at Amboise, whither King Lewis XI. also invited 
Queen Margaret ; and, though she and Warw-ick hated 
one another mortally, and had most abundant reason 
so to do, the able monarch at length effected a recon- 
ciliation between them. Prince Edward married 
Warwick's second daughter, Anne ; and it was agreed 
that all should unite to restore Henry to the throne ; 
and, if the prince should die without issue, that the 
crown was to go to Clarence. This prince, however, 
who had hoped to wrest the sceptre from his brother, 
was by no means pleased with the new arrangement ; 
and he hstened readily to the secret proposals made 
to him by King Edward, through a lady of his duch- 
ess' train, who had been left behind in England, and 
engaged to prove a loyal subject on due occasion.. 

Preparations were now made for the invasion of 
England, where Edward was passing his time in 
thoughtless gayety. His more active brother-in-law 
of Burgundy sent a fleet to blockade the mouth of the 
Seine ; but a storm dispersed it, and the exiles effect- 
ed their landing at Plymouth, on the 13th of Septem- 
ber. Warwick proclaimed King Henry, and sum- 
moned in his name all men from sixteen to sixty to 
his standard. He marched in a direct line for Not- 
tingham (his forces increasing at every step), as Ed- 
ward had been drawn to the north by a pretended 
rising of Warwick's brother-in-law, the Lord Fitz- 
Hugh. Edward had summoned his friends to Doncas- 
ter ; but few however came, and many of these soon 



94 EDWARD IV. [1471. 

went away again. One night, while he was in bed, in- 
telhgence was brought that Warwick was at hand ; 
and this was followed by tidir^s of six thousand of 
his troops having, at the instigation of the marquis,* 
flung away the white rose, and, tossing their bonnets 
into the air, shouted, " God bless King Harry !" No 
time was to be lost. He mounted his horse and rode 
to the town of Lynn, where, finding three ships, he 
embarked with about eight hundred followers ; and, 
making the mariners set sail for Holland on the 3d of 
October, he landed near Alkmaar, whence he proceed- 
ed to the Hague. 

Warwick and Clarence hastened to London ; King 
Henry was taken from the Tower, and walked in 
procession, with the crown on his head, to St. Paul's, 
on the 13th of October. A parhament was summon- 
ed, which, among other acts, confirmed the treaty of 
Amboise, and restored the Lancastrian lords who had 
lost their lands and honours. The Nevilles, of course, 
were reinstated in their former posts and offices ; but, 
to their credit, their triumph was not sanguinary. No 
blood was shed but that of Tiptoft, earl of Worcester, 
whose cruelty in his office of constable had earned 
him the title of butcher. He was taken in the top of 
a tree, in the forest of Weybridge, and was tried be- 
fore the Earl of Oxford and executed. This noble- 
man was distinguished by his cultivation and patron- 
age of literature ; but letters did not produce on his 
mind the humanizing effect usually ascribed to them.f 

It was not long, however, before Edward was again 
in arms, in 147L The Duke of Burgundy, afraid to 
assist him openly, sent him in secret 50,000 florins 
($24,000), and hired ships in which he and his follow- 
ers embarked for England. Repulsed on the coast of 
Suff'olk, he steered for the Humber, and landed, like 

* After the late rising, Edward deprived Warwick's brother of 
the earldom of Northumberland, which he restored to the Per- 
cies ; but he made him Marquis Montague, and continued his 
favour, 

t See in Stow the details of his butcheries after the battle of 
Erpingham. 



1471.] 



BATTLE OF BARNET. 95 



Henry IV., at Ravenspiir, on the 14th of March. Im- 
itating that prince, he pretended that he came only to 
claim the estates of the house of York ; and his fol- 
lowers shouted "Long live King Henry!" as they 
passed through the towns and villages. At York he 
swore on the altar that he had no design on the 
crown. He passed near Pontefract, where Montague 
lay with a large force. Messages passed between 
them, and he wejit on unimpeded : his partisans flock- 
ed to him, and at Nottingham he saw himself at the 
head of a respectable force. He now flung off" the 
mask. Clarence did the same ; ordered the men, 
whom he had raised in the name of Henry, to place 
the white rose on their gorgets ; and joined his broth- 
er. Warwick, who had advanced to Coventry, hav- 
ing declined the combat which was proff'ered, Edward 
pushed on for London, where his party was strong, for 
most of the wealthy citizens were his creditors ; the 
city dames, too, were all in the interest of the gay and 
gallant monarch ; and there were about two thousand 
of his partisans in sanctuary, ready to break out when 
necessary. The Archbishop of York, who had charge 
of the city, false as usual, caused him to be admitted, 
and swore allegiance to him. Edward, taking Henry 
with him, advanced to Barnet to meet Warwick, who 
was now approaching. Clarence sent to his father- 
in-law, offering to mediate : " Go tell your master that 
Warwick, true to his word, is a better man than the 
false and perjured Clarence," was the indignant re- 
ply. Next morning, the 14th of April, before sunrise, 
both armies were drawn out. The battle lasted six 
hours. At one time the Yorkists had the worst of it, 
and tidings of their defeat were conveyed to the city ; 
but a mistake is said to have decided the fortune of the 
day. Edward's men wore, on the back and breast, his 
badge, a sun : the Earl of Oxford's men wore his, which 
was a star with rays ; and Warwick's men, taking 
them ior enemies, charged and drove them off the field. 
Warwick and Montague were both slain ; Exeter was 
left for dead ; and Somerset and Oxford alone of the 
Lancastrian leaders escaped. Important as was this 



96 EDWARD IV. [1471. 

victory, we are told by an eyewitness that the whole 
number of the slain did not exceed eleven hundred. 
Edward returned to London in triumph ; Henry was 
once more consigned to his prison in the Tower ; and 
the bodies of Warwick and Montague, after being ex- 
posed to public view for three days at St. Paul's, were 
buried at Bilsam Abbey. Thus at length perished in 
battle the renowned Earl of Warwick, the King-maker 
as he was called ; it being the popular belief that the 
crown would always fall to the side which he es- 
poused. It has been truly said of him, that " he was 
distinguished by all the good and bad qualities which 
shine with most lustre in a barbarous age." 

But another contest awaited Edward. The very 
day of the battle of Barnet, Queen Margaret landed at 
Plymouth. When she heard of that fatal event, her 
firm spirit gave way ; she sank to the ground in de- 
spair, and then took sanctuary with her son at the 
Abbey of Beaulieu. But the Earl of Devon, the lords 
Wenlock and St. John, and others, recalled her to en- 
ergy. She advanced to Bath, where many resorted to 
her standard ; and it was resolved to try to effect a 
junction with the Earl of Pembroke, who had a large 
force in Wales. But the people of Gloucester had 
secured the only bridge over the Severn ; and, when 
she came to Tewkesbury, she learned that Edward 
was at hand with a more numerous army. The Lan- 
castrians, on the 4th of May, took their post in a strong 
enclosure without the town ; and Edward, on coming 
up, ordered his brother, the Duke of Gloucester, who 
led the van, to attack them. They gallantly repelled 
the assaults of the Yorkists ; but the Duke of Somer- 
set, sallying forth with a part of the troops, while 
Lord Wenlock kept back the remainder, his men were 
driven back and cut to pieces. The Yorkists rushed 
in ; and Somerset, in his rage, rode up to Wenlock, 
and clove his scull with his battle-axe. The queen 
and prince were made prisoners ; and the latter, it is 
said, being led before Edward in his tent, the victor 
demanded what had brought him to England. " To 
recover my father's kingdom and heritage from his 



1471.] DEATH OF HENRY. 97 

father and grandfather to him, and from him to me 
hneally descended," replied the undaunted youth. 
Edward struck him in the face with his gauntlet ; and 
Clarence, Gloucester, Hastings, and Dorset instantly 
despatched him with their swords.* The queen re- 
mained a prisoner. 

The Earl of Devon, Sir Edmund Hampden, and 
about three thousand soldiers, fell on the side of the 
Lancastrians. Somerset, St. John, and some others 
sought refuge in the church of the abbey ; and when 
Edward entered it, to return thanks for his victory, he 
granted a free pardon to all who were in it. Two 
days after, however, he repented of his mercy ; and 
they were dragged out, tried before a military tribu- 
nal, and beheaded. 

Edward re-entered London on the morning of the 
2-2d of May ; and that evening the life of Henry was 
terminated by grief, as it was given out, but more 
probably (nay, we might say certainly) by order of 
Edward, who wished to put a complete end to the 
hopes of the Lancastrians. The reason why he had 
not done this before is plain : it would have been a 
useless crime as long as Prince Edward lived. The 
actual guilt of the murder has been charged on the 
Duke of Gloucester, but without sufficient evidence. 
The body, having been exposed like those of other 
murdered princes, was interred at Chertsey ; and it 
soon was given out, that miracles were performed at 
the tomb of that innocent monarch, who was revered 
as a martyr by his party. 

Victorious over the Lancastrians, Edward now re- 
solved on war with France, and a league for this pur- 
pose was formed with the dukes of Burgundy and 
Brittany. Parliament was always liberal on occasion 
of these unjust and ridiculous claims to the crown of 

* In the Harleian MS., followed by Mr. Turner, and published 
by the Camden Society, it is said that he was " taken lleinge to 
the towne- wards, and slayne in the fielde." Another MS. says 
that he fell in battle {ceciderat belligerens). We do not think, how- 
ever, with Mr. Turner, that these are positive contradictions of 
the common story. 

Vol. II.—I 



98 EDWARD IV. [1475. 

France ; but, their liberality not sufficing, Edward had 
recourse to a novel expedient. He summoned the 
most wealthy citizens before him ; and, pretending to 
be very poor, begged that they would supply his 
wants. None, of course, dared to refuse; and the 
king facetiously named these compulsory gifts benev- 
olences. In 1475 he passed over to Calais with fif- 
teen hundred men-at-arms and fifteen thousand arch- 
ers, and summoned the Duke of Burgundy to join 
him. But that prince had already exhausted his re- 
sources ; and Louis, who had no desire for a war, 
learning that lords Howard and Stanley and others 
were as httle inchned to it, and Edw^ard himself not 
extremely anxious for it, sent proposals of peace, 
and a truce was concluded for seven years. Edward 
was to be paid 75,000 crowns ($85,000) down, and 
50,000 crowns ($56,500) a year ; the dauphin was to 
marry his eldest daughter, and Queen Margaret was 
to be liberated on the payment of 50,000 crowns 
by Louis. The two monarchs then had a personal 
interview, on the bridge of Pecquigny, near Amiens. 
A grating of wood was placed across it, to prevent 
any treachery, and they conversed familiarly for 
some time. To keep up his influence in the English 
councils and avert future wars, Louis settled pen- 
sions on Lord Hastings, Lord Dorset, and others of 
the king's ministers and favourites. 

The Duke of Clarence had, perhaps, never recover- 
ed the place which he had held in the king's mind 
previous to his union with Warwick, and he had 
now also a powerful enemy in his younger brother 
Richard ; for this ambitious youth, in order to gain a 
share of the immense possessions of Warwick, had 
formed a plan to marry the young widow of the late 
Prince of Wales ; while Clarence, wiio grasped at the 
whole inheritance, strove as much as he could to 
conceal his sister-in-law, who, after a search of some 
months, was found disguised as a cook-maid in Lon- 
don. Richard then espoused her, and arbitrators 
were appointed by the king to divide the property be- 
tween them; but hatred still rankled in the bosoms 



/ 

1476-1478.] DEATH OF CLARENCE. 99 

of the brothers. After the end of the French war, 
the king, to avoid the odium of taxation, resumed 
most of the grants made of late years. Clarence, 
by this regulation, lost several estates, and with- 
drew in anger from court. Some time after, in 1476, 
his duchess died ; and, as the Duke of Burgundy had 
been slain at Nanci, and his daughter Mary by his 
first marriage became the heiress of his dominions, 
Clarence, aided by his sister, the dowager duchess, 
sought the hand of the princess ; but the king, from 
dislike and jealousy of him, offered every opposition 
in his power. It is also said that the queen was hos- 
tile to him on this account ; as her own brother. 
Lord Rivers, aspired to the hand of the heiress of 
Burgundy. He thus had powerful enemies and few 
friends. 

It happened one day, it is said, as the king was 
hunting at Harrow in Warwickshire, the seat of a 
gentleman named Thomas Burdett, who was in the 
service of Clarence, that he killed a white stag, the fa- 
vourite of the owner. Burdett, on hearing of the 
death of his stag, in his grief and anger wished that 
its horns were in the body of him who killed it. It 
is not clear whether he knew that the king was the 
person : he was, however, thrown into prison, tried, 
and executed for treason.* About this time, too, one 
Stacey, a clergyman and chaplain to Clarence, was 
accused of magic, and executed for this offence. 
Clarence loudly asserted the innocence of his friends : 
while his words were repeated with exaggeration to 
the king, who committed him to the Tower; and then, 
summoning a parliament in 1478, accused him before 
it of high treason. He was found guilty, sentence of 
death was passed on him, and he was recommitted to 
the Tower. His death was announced about ten days 
after. The manner of it is uncertain; but the com- 

* Such is the common story, as told by More, Hollingshed, and 
others. The endictment against Burdett says nothing of it : it 
charges him with conspiring with Stacey and another to calculate 
the nativities of the king and his son, to know when they should 
die ; and of distributing seditious verses in Holborn. 



100 EDWARD IV. [1483. 

mon report was, that he was given his choice, and 
that he selected drowning in a butt of malmsey. 
His brother, it is said, afterM^ard regretted his severity 
to him. As the chief gainers by the death of Clar- 
ence were the queen's family, it is not unlikely that 
they had stimulated the cruelty of the king. 

The remaining events of Edward's reign were of 
little importance. While, enraged at the perfidious 
conduct of Louis respecting the marriage of the dau- 
phin to his daughter, he was meditating war against 
him, he was seized with a disease which proved fatal. 
He died on the 6th of April, 1483, in the forty-second 
year of his age and twenty-third of his reign. On 
his deathbed he directed that restitution out of his 
treasures should be made to those whom he had 
wronged or from whom he had extorted benevo- 
lences. 

Edward was remarkably handsome in person, 
though towards the end of his life he became ex- 
tremely corpulent. He was addicted to pleasure and 
indulgence of every kind. In his family he was kind 
and affectionate ; and, though notoriously faithless to 
his queen, he was lavish in his grants to her and her 
relations. Like Marc Antony, whom he resembled 
in many points, he united with his love of pleasure a 
great capacity for business, a daimtless valour, and 
much skill in the field; but his conduct after victory 
was generally tarnished by cruelty. His manners 
were showy and popular, and he retained to the last 
the affections of the people. 



1483.] PARTIES AT COURT. 101 



CHAPTER XIIL 

EDWARD V. RICHARD III.* 

1483-1485. 

Parties at Court. — Imprisonment of Rivers and Grey. — Execa- 
tion of Hastings. — Jane Shore. — Dr. Shaw's Sermon. — Glou- 
cester made King.— Murder of the Princes.— Conspiracy and 
Death of Buckingham. — Richard proposes to marry his Niece. 
—Landing of Richmond.— Battle of Bosworth. — Constitution 
under the Plantagenets, — Religion of the Fifteenth Century. 

The new king was a boy only in his thirteenth 
year, and therefore unable to assume the govern- 
ment. The court was split into two parties : the one 
composed of the family of the queen, of whom the 
principal were the accomplished Earl Rivers, her 
brother, and the Marquis of Dorset, her son. The 
other party consisted of tlie lords Hastings, Howard, 
Stanley, and other members of the ancient nobility, 
who, though sincerely attached to the person and 
cause of the king, could ill brook the favour of the 
upstart Woodvilles. While Edward lived, ke kept 
both within bounds ; but he feared lest the scenes of 
the minority of Henry VI. might be renewed ; and, 
when he found himself dying, he summoned both 
parties to his chamber, and made them embrace in 
his presence, fondly deeming thus to extinguish their 
long-cherished enmity. 

The young king was proclaimed in the usual man- 
ner on the 9th of April. He was now residing at 
Ludlow with his uncle Rivers, and maternal brother 
Lord Grey, under the pretext that his presence would 
restrain the turbulent Welsh ; but, in reahty, that he 
might become attached to his mother's family. The 
queen proposed that directions should be sent to Lord 

* Authorities : Cont. of Croyland, Rouse, More, Buck. 
18 



102 EDWARD V. [1483. 

Rivers to raise an army, and conduct his nephew to 
London ; but Hastings and his friends, taking alarm, 
strenuously opposed this course ; and the queen, in 
an evil hour, consented that her son should travel with 
an escort of only two thousand horse. 

The two first princes of the blood were Richard 
duke of Gloucester, and Henry duke of Buckingham, 
who was descended from the youngest son of Edward 
in. The former was at this time commanding an 
army on the borders of Scotland ; and, when he heard 
of his brother's death, he repaired to York, and sum- 
moned the gentry of the county to swear allegiance 
to his nephew, himself setting them the example. 
He wrote in terms of the utmost friendship to the 
queen and her family ; and then moved towards Lon- 
don, to be present at the coronation, which was fixed 
for the month of May. In the mean time, secret 
messages, of the exact import of which we are unin- 
formed, passed between him, Hastings, and Bucking- 
ham. 

On the 29th of April, the day on which the young 
king reached Stoney Stratford, Gloucester arrived at 
Northampton, distant about ten miles. When Rivers 
and Grey heard he was there, they turned back to 
salute him in the name of the king. He received 
them with the greatest cordiality, and invited them 
to dinner. In the evening, Buckingham arrived with 
three hundred horsemen. Rivers and Grey stopped 
for the night, and in the morning rode with the two 
dukes to wait on the king ; but, just as they w^ere en- 
tering Stoney Stratford, Gloucester turned and charged 
them with alienating from him the aff*ections of his 
nephew. They denied the charge ; but were arrest- 
ed and conveyed to the rear. The two dukes then 
waited on the king, and with bended knee professed 
their loyalty, assuring him that the marquis his 
brother, and Rivers his uncle, had compassed to rule 
the realm and destroy its noble blood. " What my 
lord marquis," replied he, " may have done in London, 
I cannot say ; but I dare answer for my uncle Rivers 
and my brother here, that they be imiocent of any 



1483.] RICHARD OF GLOUCESTER. 103 

such matter." The dukes then arrested Sir Thomas 
Vaughan and Sir Richard Hawse, two of his princi- 
pal attendants, and commanded the rest of his reti- 
nue to disperse. They led the king back to North- 
ampton, and sent the four prisoners northward. 

When intelhgence of what had occurred at Strat- 
ford reached London, the queen, in alarm and terror, 
took sanctuary at Westminster, with her five daugh- 
ters, and her sons the Marquis of Dorset and the 
Duke of York. On the 4th of May, Gloucester led the 
young king to London, where he was lodged in the 
bishop's palace, and received the homage of all pres- 
ent. A few days after, on the motion of Bucking- 
ham, he was removed to the Tower, preparatory to 
his coronation, which was fixed for the 22d of June. 
Gloucester, meanwhile, was named Protector; and 
many of the great officers of state were displaced to 
make room for his creatures. 

So far the conduct of Gloucester is at least suspi- 
cious : as we proceed it gradually darkens. Finding 
Hastings, Stanley, and others, though hostile to the 
Woodvilles, firmly attached to the young king, he 
" divided the council ; letting them and their friends sit 
at the Tower, while he and his partisans met at 
Crosby Place,* his own residence. When his secret 
plans were matured, he went, on the 13th of June, to 
the Tower, and took his seat at the council-board. 
He assumed a gay and cheerful humour ; and, prais- 
ing the strawberries which grew in the Bishop of 
Ely's garden at Holborn, requested to have a dish of 
them for dinner. The bishop sent a servant to fetch 
them. The protector withdrew, as if on business ; 
and in about an hour after he returned, with an al- 
tered countenance, and sat down in silence. At 
length he cried, " Of what are they worthy who have 
compassed the death of me, the king's protector by 
nature as well as by law V " To be punished," said 
Hastings, " as heinous traitors." " And that," rephed 
he, "hath that sorceress, my brother's wife, with 

* In Bishopsgate-street ; a portion of it still exists. 



104 EDWARD V. ^ [1483. 

others her accomplices, endeavoured to do." " See," 
continued he, " in what a miserable manner that sor- 
ceress and Shore's wife, with others their associates, 
have, by their sorcery and witchcraft, miserably de- 
stroyed my body." He then unbuttoned his sleeve, 
and showed them his left arm shrunk and withered. 
As those present knew that his arm had always been 
so, they saw that he wanted to quarrel with them. 
Hastings, however, whose mistress Shore then was, 
replied, " Certainly, my lord, if they have indeed 
done any such thing, they deserve to be both severely 
punished." "Do you answer me with ifs and ands, 
as if I charged them falsely V cried the protector, in a 
rage : " I tell you they have done it, and thou hast 
joined with them in this villany." He struck the 
table with his fist ; a man without shouted Treason ! 
and armed men rushed in. " I arrest thee, traitor !" 
cried Richard to Hastings : Stanley and the bishops 
of York and Ely were also arrested and sent to sep- 
arate cells ; and to Hastings he said, " Shrive thyself 
apace, for, by St. Paul, I will not dine till I see thy 
head off!" He took a priest at a venture ; and, hav- 
ing made short shrift, was then led down to the green 
before the chapel, and his head was struck off on a 
piece of timber that was lying there. After his dm- 
ner Richard summoned the principal citizens to at- 
tend him. He and Buckingham came forth in rusty 
armour (suddenly taken, as it were, in the Tower, for 
their defence), and he told them that Hastings had 
intended murdering him and the duke ; that he had 
not discovered this design till ten o'clock this morn- 
ing, and had thus been oWiged to provide for his de- 
fence. He requested them to inform their fellow- 
citizens of the truth of the case. A proclamation to 
the same effect was also issued, which was so neatly 
composed and fairly written, that it was plain to most 
people it could not have been drawn up after the 
death of Hastings. 

On the very same day on which Hastings was thus 
murdered, Ratcliffe, one of Richard's principal confi- 
dants, came to Pontefract, where Rivers and his three 



1483.] JANE SHORE. 105 

friends now were. A court, presided over by the 
Earl of Northumberland, was formed for their trial ; 
and they were found guilty of conspiring the death of 
Richard. Their heads were struck off forthwith. 
The aged Sir Thomas Vaughan appealing, when on 
the scaffold, to the tribunal of God against this mur- 
der, Ratcliffe said with a sneer, " You have made a 
goodly appeal, lay down your head !" " I die in the 
right," replied he ; " take heed you die not in the 
wrong!" words proved by the event to be prophetic* 

The ultimate object of Richard must have been now 
apparent to every one, and each day added confirma- 
tion to suspicion. On the 16th he entered his barge, 
with several nobles and prelates, and, followed by a 
large body of armed men, proceeded to Westminster, 
in order to obtain the Duke of York by force, if he 
could not do it by fair means. He first sent a depu- 
tation of nobles, headed by the primate, to demand 
him from the queen ; and Elizabeth, knowing the in- 
utihty of resistance, affected to acquiesce cheerfully. 
She called for her son, gave him a last embrace, and 
then, turning about, burst into tears. The child was 
conveyed in great pomp to the Tower ; and the two 
innocent doomed victims naturally received much 
delight at meeting again, little suspecting the fate 
that awaited them. 

The protector now appeared in a new character: 
that of a rigid censor of morals. Among the mis- 
tresses of the late king was a woman named Jane 
Shore, the wife of a young and opulent citizen. 
" Proper she was and fair," says Sir Thomas More, 
" yet delighted not men so much in her beauty as in 
her pleasant behaviour ; for a proper wit had she, 
and could both read well and write ; ready and quick 
of answer, neither mute nor babbling." After the 

* More. Rivers, however, could not have been there, as we 
have his will dated on the 23d at Sherilf Hutton's. But, as at 
the end of it are the following' words, " My will is now to he buried 
before an image of our blessed Lady Mary with my Lord Richard 
(Grey)," &c., he must have been executed at Pontefract, but 
some days after the others. See Lingard and Turner. 



106 EDWARD V. ' [1483. 

death of the king she had become attached to Hast- 
ings ; and she Avas now arrested as a participator 
in his conspiracy. The protector committed her to 
prison, seized her goods to the value of 3000 marks 
to his own use, and then had her tried in the spiritual 
court for incontinence and adultery. She was sen- 
tenced to perform public penance ; and, stripped to her 
kirtle, with her feet bare, carrying a lighted taper, and 
preceded by the cross, she was made to walk to St. 
Paul's through the crowded streets.* 

Having thus revived the memory of the dissolute 
habits of his brother, Richard next proceeded to ar- 
raign the legitimacy of his children. On the 22d of 
June, Dr. Shaw, an Augustinian friar, brother to the 
lord-mayor, preached at St. Pauls Cross. f His text 
was " Bastard slips shall not strike deep roots" (Wis- 
dom of Solomon, iv., 3) ; and, taking occasion to notice 
the profligate habits of the late king, he proceeded to 
say that he had actually, at one time, caused a mar- 
riage to be celebrated between himself and Eleanor 
the widow of Lord Botelcr of Sudely, by Stillington, 
now bishop of Bath, who had since declared the 
same ; and that, consequently, his marriage with 
Elizabeth Grey was illegal, and the issue illegitimate. 
It Vv^as even, he hinted, doubtful if Edward himself 
land the Duke of Clarence (who, however, had been 
attainted) were the children of the Duke of York, to 
whom they bore no resemblance. " But," cried the 
preacher, "my lord the protector, that very noble 
prince, the pattern of all heroic deeds, is the perfect 
image of his father ; his features are the same, and 

* Jane afterward lived with the Marquis of Dorset. Lynom, 
the solicitor-general, was then about to marry her ; and there is a 
letter extant from Richard to the chancellor on the subject, which 
is rather creditable to his feelings. The marriage, however, does 
not seem to have taken place. Jane lived to a great age, jn pov- 
erty and neglect, for she died in 1527. "^I'he popular tale of Rich- 
ard's forbidding any one to relieve her, &c., is a popular tale and 
nothing more. 

t This cross, which we shall find so often mentioned, was a 
large ornamented cross in front of St. Paul's Cathedral, It was 
ithe great preaching-place on public occasions. 



1483.] STRATAGEMS OF RICHARD III. 107 

the very express likeness of that noble duke." It had 
been arranged that the protector should make his 
appearance at these words ; and it was hoped that 
the people would be thus induced to cry, " God save 
King Richard!" but it was badly managed: Shaw 
was too quick, or the duke too slow. He did not 
enter till after the words had been uttered; the mal- 
adroit preacher repeated them ; but the people easily 
saw through the device, and remained silent. The 
protector gave a look of anger ; and the baffled divine 
slunk away to his own house, AVhich it is said he 
never again left, dying shortly after of pure chagrin. 

This plan having failed, it was resolved to employ 
a nobler advocate. On the following Tuesday, June 
24, Buckingham harangued the people at Guildhall ; 
and, having alluded to the topics handled in the ser- 
mon on the last Sunday, maintained that the right to 
the crown lay with Richard. Still the people were 
silent. He then demanded an answer one way or the 
other ; when a few hired voices from the end of the 
hall cried " King Richard !" He gave them his thanks ; 
and requested them to accompany him next day to 
the protector. 

The next morning, Buckingham, the mayor, and 
several lords and principal citizens, repaired to Bay- 
nard Castle, where Richard resided, and demanded an 
audience. Richard, affecting terror, would only show 
himself from a window. Buckingham then read an 
address, as from the estates of the realm, imbodying 
the charges made against the king and his marriage, 
and calling on the Duke of Gloucester to assume the 
crown, to which he was lawful heir. Richard pre- 
tended great reluctance, and spoke of his affection for 
his nephews, and his aversion to royalty. " Sir," said 
Buckingham, " the free people of England will never 
submit to the rule of a bastard ; and, if the lawful heir 
refuses the sceptre, they know Avhere to find one who 
will gladly accept it." Richard paused at this bold 
language, and then declared that he felt it to be hig 
duty to obey the voice of his people. The farce thus 
terminated, and on the following day he took pos- 
session of the throne. 



108 RICHARD III.. [1483. 

Richard lost no time in giving the sanction of a 
coronation to his title. He and his wife, the Lady- 
Anne Neville, were crowned on the 6th of July with 
great magnificence. He then proceeded to reward 
his adherents, and to seek to gain by clemency his 
opponents. Lord Stanley was set at liberty, and made 
steward of the household ; his wife, the Countess of 
Richmond, bore the queen's train at the coronation ; 
the Archbishop of York also was set free ; and the 
Bishop of Ely was committed to the charge of Buck- 
ingham. The king then set forth on a progress 
through the kingdom : he visited Oxford, Gloucester, 
and Worcester, whence he went to Warwick, where 
he remained a week, and thence proceeded through 
Coventry, Leicester, Nottingham, and Pontefract to 
York. There, to gratify the people of the north, his 
most faithful adherents, he caused himself and his 
queen to be crowned over again, with the same pomp 
as in London. 

It was during this progress that he filled up the 
measure of his guilt. He sent orders from Warwick 
to Sir Richard Brackenbury, heutenant of the Tower, 
to put the two princes to death. Brackenbury, how- 
ever, refused ; and Sir James Tyrrel, master of the 
horse, was then sent with orders to receive the keys 
and custody of the Tower for one night. Bracken- 
bury dared not refuse ; and that very night Tyrrel 
went with Dighton, one of his grooms, and Forest, 
" a noted ruflEian," to the chamber where the princes 
lay. He himself remained outside, while his agents 
went in and smothered the sleeping children with the 
bedclothes. They then called in Tyrrel to view the 
dead bodies ; and, by his command, buried them at 
the foot of the staircase. All concerned were amply 
rewarded by the king : Brackenbury got manors and 
pensions, Tyrrel was made steward of the duchy of 
Cornwall and governor of Glamorganshire, Forest 
keeper of the wardrobe at Baynard Castle, and Digh- 
ton was appointed baihff of Alton in Staffordshire.* 

* See Appendix (C). 



1483.] Buckingham's conspiracy. 109 

At this very time there was an extensive conspir- 
acy on foot to dethrone the usurper, and to set the 
rightful prince in his place ; and, Avhat may excite sur- 
prise, the Duke of Buckingham was at the head of it. 
What his motives for so sudden a change could have 
been, it is difficult to say. He had throughout been 
Richard's chief supporter ; had been most amply re- 
warded, and had no ingratitude to complain of. He 
might have grown suspicious and fearful of the king 
whom he had set up ; he might have been urged by 
mortified vanity ; or, as it is said, the eloquence of 
his prisoner, Morton, bishop of Ely, might have 
wrought a change in him. He was, moreover, married 
to a sister of the Queen Elizabeth, and we know not 
what the influence of his wife may have been. At 
all events, he resolved to restore the young prince. 
Richard, however, when he discovered the plot, caus- 
ed the death of the princes to be made public. This 
somewhat disconcerted the conspirators ; but, as they 
could not now recede, they gave ear to the proposal of 
the Bishop of Ely on the part of the Lancastrians, that 
they should offer the crown to Henry, earl of Rich- 
mond, the head of that party, on condition of his es- 
pousing Elizabeth, now the heiress of the house of 
York, and thus uniting the rival claims. All being 
agreed on, a messenger was sent to the earl, who was 
in Brittany, to hasten his return to England ; and the 
18th of October was fixed as the day for a general 
rising. 

On the appointed day, the Marquis of Dorset pro- 
claimed Henry at Exeter ; the Bishop of Salisbury did 
the same in Wiltshire ; the gentry of Kent met at 
Maidstone ; those of Berks at Newbury ; and Buck- 
ingham assembled his Welshmen at Brecknock. 
Richard, who had already proclaimed the duke a trai- 
tor, joined his troops at Leicester on the 28th of Oc- 
tober, where he issued another proclamation, vaunting 
his zeal for morality, calling his enemies " traitors, 
adulterers," etc., whose chief object was "the letting 
of virtue and the damnable maintenance of vice," and 

Vol. II.— K 



110 RICHAUD III. [1483. 

offering pardon to those who should leave, and re- 
wards to those who should take them. 

Fortune, moreover, stood his friend. Henry, who 
had sailed with forty ships from St. Malo, was driven 
back by tempests ; and Buckingham, when he had led 
his men through the forest of Dean to the Severn, 
found the bridges broken, and the river so swollen by 
the rains as to be nowhere fordable. His followers 
lost spirit and dispersed ; he himself and Morton took 
refuge at Webly, the seat of Lord Ferres, whence the 
latter proceeded in disguise to the Isle of Ely, and 
thence escaped to Flanders ; the duke also made his 
way in disguise to the house of one Ralph Bannister, 
his servant, near Shrewsbury, but was discovered, 
through the perfidy of his host, or the imprudence of 
those who knew of his retreat. He was taken and 
led to Richard, who was now at Salisbury ; his solici- 
tations for an audience were rejected ;* and, on the 
2d of November, his head was struck off in the mar- 
ket. Dorset and the Bishop of Exeter made their es- 
cape to Brittany, most of the others concealed them- 
selves, and very few executions took place. 

Richard thought he might now venture to summon 
a parliament. Whether, as it is said, fear was the 
motive or not, no more obsequious assembly could be 
than that which met on the 11th of November. His 
title was fully recognised, and the succession settled 
on his son Edward prince of Wales. An act of at- 
tainder and forfeiture was then passed against the 
heads of the late insurrection ; and another act, abro- 
gating and annulling for ever all exactions under the 
name of benevolence. 

Though Richard had caused the marriage of his 
brother to be declared null, and had deprived his wid- 
ow of her dower as queen, he knew that the validity 
of that marriage was generally acknowledged, and that 
the Yorkists now regarded her eldest daughter as the 
rightful heir to the crown. He had also learned that, at 

* Buckingham's son declared that it had been his father's in- 
tention, had he been admitted into Richard's presence, to rash on 
him and stab him with a knife, which he had concealed about him. 



1484, 1485,] THE PRINCESS ELIZABETH. Ill 

the festival of Christmas, five hundred of the Yorkist 
exiles had sworn fealty to Henry in Brittany, on his 
pledging himself to make her his queen in case of his 
defeating the usurper. To counteract this plan, he 
addressed himself to the queen-dowager ; and, having 
pledged himself by a solemn oath that they should be 
treated with all due respect as his kinswomen, he in- 
duced her and her daughters to quit the sanctuary, and 
come to court on the 1st of March, 1484. It seems 
to have been his intention to marry the Princess Eliz- 
abeth, whom he treated with marked attention, to his 
son Edward. But the very next month this young 
prince died suddenly, to the extreme grief of both his 
parents. The king's favour to Elizabeth, however, 
continued unchanged; and she was attached to the 
person of the queen. John de la Pole, earl of Lincoln, 
son to the king's sister, the Duchess of Suffolk, was 
declared heir presumptive to the crown. 

At Christmas the king held his court at Westmin- 
ster with extraordinary magnificence ; and it was re- 
marked that his niece always appeared attired hke 
the queen. Soon after the latter fell sick, and Rich- 
ard immediately offered his hand to Elizabeth; as- 
suring her that the queen would die in February, and 
that he would then procure a dispensation from Rome 
for their marriage. To the disgrace of the queen- 
dowager, she gave a ready consent to the union of her 
daughter with the murderer of her brother and her three 
sons ; and an extant letter of the princess shows the 
indecent impatience which she felt for this unnatural 
marriage.* Queen Anne did in effect die ere long, 
viz., on the 16th of March ; and there are grounds for 
suspecting that he who foretold her death took means 
to cause his prophecy to be fulfilled. But now an un- 
expected difficulty arose. When he communicated 
his project to Ratcliffe and Catesby, his chief advisers 
and confidants,! they opposed it in the strongest man- 

* See Appendix (D). 

t " The Cat, the Rat, and Lovel our dog, 
Rule all England under the hog," 
was a popular distich at this time. It cost its author his life. 
The " bristled boar" was Richard's cognisance. 



112 RICHARD in. [1485 

ner ; representing how the moral feeling of the nation 
would be shocked by this incestuous union, which 
would convert to certainty the suspicion which peo- 
ple had, of his having removed his queen by poison ; 
and this might deprive him of the support of the men 
of the north, who were attached to him chiefly on her 
account, as the daughter of Warwick. It is said that 
their secret motive, however, was fear lest Elizabeth 
should take vengeance for the murder of her family. 
Their arguments prevailed ; and, in the hall of the 
Temple, Richard solemnly declared before the mayor, 
aldermen, and commoners, that he never had thought 
of such a marriage. He wrote to the same effect to 
the citizens of York. 

The mind of the king is now said to have become a 
prey to terror and anxiety ; and he was haunted, we 
are told, by fearful dreams, caused by his crimes. His 
money, too, was all expended ; he could not venture 
to apply to parliament ; and he was therefore obliged, 
under another name, to levy benevolences (which had 
been abolished in his preceding parliament) on the citi- 
zens, which lost him their favour. Many now desert- 
ed to Henry ; and the Lord Stanley, whose influence 
was great, and who was married to Henry's mother, 
caused the king great uneasiness, though he had lav- 
ished favours on him, and Stanley had never given 
him the slightest ground for suspicion. To secure 
the fidehty of that nobleman, he retained his son, 
Lord Strange, at court by way of a hostage. 

At length, being assured that the King of France 
had given Henry permission to hire troops, and that 
a fleet lay ready at the mouth of the Seine, Richard 
put forth a proclamation on the 23d of June, calling 
the exiles " murderers, adulterers, and extortioners ;" 
and asserting that Henry meditated unheard-of 
slaughters and confiscations, &c., and calling on all 
true Englishmen to aid him in tlie defence of their 
wives and properties. He then fixed his headquar- 
ters at Nottingham, on the 21th of July; and, ere 
long, he received intelligence of the landing of Henry 
at. Milford Haven, on the 7th of August. 



1485.] BATTLE OF BOSWORTH FIELD. 113 

Henry marched through North Wales, where, though 
none opposed, few joined him ; and, when he reached 
Shrewsbury, he had but four thousand men. Urged 
by the secret assurances of many who could not yet 
declare themselves, he still pressed on towards Lei- 
cester, where Richard now lay with a numerous ar- 
my ; having been joined by the Duke of Norfolk, the 
Earl of Northumberland, and lords Lovel and Brack- 
enbury, with their levies. Lord Stanley had excused 
himself, under the pretext of illness ; but his son be- 
ing detected in an attempt to escape, he was obliged, 
in order to save him, to hasten to join the royal stand- 
ard. 

On the 21st of August Richard moved from Leices- 
ter, and encamped about two miles from the town of 
Bosworth. Henry, having been joined by the Stan- 
leys, moved from Tamworth to Atherston, and next 
morning both armies advanced to Redmore. Henry 
had now six thousand men, his rival double the num- 
ber. Richard was dismayed when he saw the Stan- 
leys opposed to him ; but he roused his wonted cour- 
age. The vanguards, under the Duke of Norfolk and 
the earls of Oxford, engaged for some time ; Richard 
then seeing Northumberland inactive, and the rest of 
his troops wavering, spurred his horse and rushed, 
crying " Treason, treason !" to where he espied 
Henry. He killed Sir William Brandon, the stand- 
ard-bearer, unhorsed Sir John Cheney, and had made 
a furious blow at Henry himself, which was warded 
off by Sir William Stanley, when he was thrown from 
his horse and slain. Lord Stanley, taking up the 
crown which he wore, placed it on the head of Hen- 
ry ; and shouts of " Long live King Henry !" were 
instantly raised. The Duke of Norfolk, Lord Fer- 
rers, Ratcliffe, and Brackenbury, with about three 
thousand men, were slain ; Avhile the victors lost but 
one hundred men. The body of Richard was strip- 
ped, thrown across a horse, and carried to Leicester, 
where it was interred in the church of the Grey friars. 
The blood of Catesby and two others alone was shed 
after the victory. 

K 2 



114 RICHARD III. [1485. 

Richard was but two-and- thirty years old when he 
thus perished, the victim of his ambition. In his 
person he was small ; and the defect in his left arm, 
and an elevation of one shoulder, deformed him in 
some measure ; but his face was handsome, and like 
his father's. There is no foundation for the common 
tale of his having been born with teeth; and only 
what we have stated for that of his being hump- 
backed. He was brave, loved magnificence, and jus- 
tice also when it did not interfere with his ambition; 
but, in the gratification of this passion, we have seen 
that he would stop at no crime. Had he come hon- 
estly by his crown, he might have worn it to his own 
honour and to the advantage of his people.* 

With Richard ended the Plantagenet dynasty, which 
had ruled England nearly three centuries and a half; 
and the battle of Bosworth terminated the Civil Wars 
of the Roses, which, with intermissions, had lasted 
for a space of thirty years. It was a remarkable fea- 
ture in these wars, that the evils of them fell chiefly 
on the nobihty ; for, with one exception, the slaughter 
in the field was not considerable ; and there was none 
of that petty warfare in different parts of the coun- 
try, by which, in civil wars which interest the feel- 
ings and passions of the middle and lower classes, so 
much more blood is shed than in regular battles. 
Successive generations of the houses of Neville, 
Pole, and Clifford, were cut off on the field or the 
scaffold, and many were reduced to the most abject 

* The preceding account of the life and actions of this monarch 
would hardly seem to justify so favourable a character as is here 
given of him. But little good, we think, could be expected, un- 
der any circumstances, from a man capable of committing such 
enormous crimes. Hume says of him, that a life so infamous did 
not deserve so glorious a death ; and Russell calls him a blood- 
thirsty tyrant. His bravery (if deeds of bloody oaring deserve 
that name) is no more worthy of praise than the ferocity of the 
tiger. It only made him the more deadly and dangerous. Such 
monsters of wickedness should be held up to the unmitigated ex- 
^^pration and scorn of mankmd.— Am. Ed, 



NATURE OP THE CONSTITUTION. 115 

state of poverty.* "I myself," says Comines, "saw 
the Duke of Exeter, the King of England's brother- 
in-law, walking barefoot after the Duke of Burgundy's 
train, and earning his bread from door to door." "In 
my remembrance," says the same writer, " eighty 
princes of the blood royal of England perished in 
these convulsions ; seven or eight battles were fought 
in the course of thirty years ; their own country was 
desolated by the English as cruelly as the former 
generation had wasted France." In this, however, 
there seems to be some exaggeration : there certainly 
did not fall that number of princes of the blood, nei- 
ther could the desolation have been so very great. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

STATE OP THE CONSTITUTION. 

Nature of the Constitution. — Abuses of Prerogative. — Wardship 
and Escheat. — Forest Laws. — Constables' and Marshals' 
Courts.— Purveyance.— Taxation.— Pardons.— Maintenance. — 
Army. — Navy. — Punishment of Crime. — Religion. 

We have thus brought our history to the end of the 
Plantagenet dynasty. As the feudal and papal period 
of England may be said to terminate with them (the 
next period being one of transition to the present al- 
tered condition of society), we will conclude it by a 
sketch of the political and religious state of the coun- 
try at that time. 

The constitution of England under the Plantagenets 
was a monarchy hmited by laws, and which the king 
could not alter at his will. " A king of England," 
says Sir John Fortescue, writing to the son of Henry 
VI., "cannot at his pleasure make any alterations in 

* The story of the shepherd Lord Clifford, to which Words- 
worth's poetry has lent additional attractions, strongly resembles 
that pf Feridooo in the romantic annals of Persia 



116 STATE OF THE CONSTITUTION. 

the law of the land ; for the nature of his government 
is not only regal, but political." Yet the king was not 
merely an hereditary executive magistrate : he had ex- 
tensive prerogatives annexed to his dignity ; and the 
great object of the patriots of this period was to limit 
these rights, and restrain their abuse. The redress 
of grievances was usually a matter of bargain be- 
tween the king and parliament : they granting a sub- 
sidy, and he engaging to correct what was complained 
of. Still the kings would, when they had the power, 
go on in their old course ; but the parliament, by per- 
severance, and by taking advantage of foreign wars, 
disputed successions, and other circumstances, gradu- 
ally set limits to prerogative ; and an able writer of 
the present day has with reason thus expressed him- 
self :* " I know not whether there are any essential 
privileges of our countrymen, any fundamental secu- 
rities against arbitrary power, so far as they depend 
upon positive institution, which may not be traced to 
the time when the house of Plantagenet filled the 
English throne." 

The great cause of this rational limitation of pow- 
er and establishment of the principles of true liberty 
seems to have been the peculiar situation of the Eng- 
lish aristocracy. The nobles were not, like those of 
the Continent, the lords of extensive continuous ter- 
ritories, who might singly set the crown at defiance. 
Their manors lay scattered through various coun- 
ties ; the power of the sovereign could at once crush 
any refractory vassal ; it was only by union among 
themselves, and by gaining the people to their side, 
that they could maintain their rights and limit the 
royal prerogative. In this manner the interests of 
the nobility became identified with those of the peo- 
ple ; and hence their names are associated with every 
struggle for liberty throughout English history. This 
was farther increased by the remarkable circumstance, 
that the English was the only nobility which did not 
form a peculiar class or caste. In England, the ac- 

* Hallam, p. 450, Harpers' edition. 



ABUSES OF PREROGATIVE. 117 

tual holder of the title alone was noble : his sons and 
brothers were simple commoners, and ranked with 
the people. Hence arose that melting into one an- 
other of the various grades of society, to be found in 
no other monarchical country ; and, as the English no- 
bles never claimed any exemption from taxes and 
other burdens, their privileges never excited jealousy 
or hatred. For all these advantages England is main- 
ly indebted to the high power of the crown establish- 
ed by the Anglo-Norman monarchs, combined with 
the free principles of government transmitted by the 
Anglo-Saxons. 

The abuses of the prerogative against which the 
efforts of English patriots were directed from the pe- 
riod of Magna Charta, were the following : 

1. The feudal rights of wardship and escheat. Of 
the legality of these there could be no question ; but 
the exercise of them gave occasion to much injustice 
and oppression. The royal officers, for example, of- 
ten, under the pretext of wardship, took possession of 
lands not held immediately of the crown : or they 
claimed as escheats lands of which the right heir 
was in existence, or seized as forfeited lands which 
had been entailed. The remedy in such cases was 
usually slow and uncertain; and always expensive, as 
neitlier costs nor damages could be recovered against 
the crown. 

2. The Forest Laws, though greatly tamed from their 
original ferocity, were still a source of oppression. 
The king's officers were frequently attempting to re- 
cover the purlieus, or those lands adjoining the forests 
which had originally belonged to them, but had been 
disafforested by the Charter of Forests ; and, though 
frequent perambulations had ascertained the proper 
limits of the forests, the holders of the purlieus were 
continually disturbed in their possessions. 

3. The constable and marshal of England possessed 
a jurisdiction which, within the realm, only extended 
to military offences. They, however, frequently as- 
sumed the power of inquiring into treasons and felo- 



118 STATE OF THE CONSTITUTION. 

nies, which were offences at common law, and even 
took on them to decide cases of trespass and civil 
contracts. As their court was not, like courts of 
law, regulated by fixed rules and principles, it was 
more easily converted into an instrument of oppres- 
sion. 

4. But no grievance seems to have been so galling 
as the abuse of Purveyance; that "outrageous and 
intolerable grievance and source of infinite damage to 
the people," as the parliament termed it in the reign 
of Edward III. Purveyance, of which traces may be 
discovered in the Anglo-Saxon times, was the right 
of taking, even without the consent of the owner, but 
at a fair price, provisions, and whatever else was re- 
quisite, for the king and his household. It also ex- 
tended to the right of impressing horses and carriages 
when the king was on a journey, and of providing 
lodgings for his train. As the purveyors set the pri- 
ces of the articles which they took, and usually paid 
for them by tallies on the exchequer, the people had 
not only to endure their insolence, but to see too low 
a price set on their goods ; often to see them taken 
without any payment at all, and very generally to find 
the exchequer empty when they presented their tal- 
lies. To aggravate the evil, not only the king, but 
several of the great lords, especially in turbulent 
times, claimed the right of purveyance. The com- 
mons made every effort, but in vain, to restrain this 
oppressive prerogative : it continued till the final de- 
mise of feudalism. 

5. The abuses of taxation. The principle of talla- 
ges and of the subsidies which succeeded them, was, 
that a man should give a certain proportion of his 
moveable property to the crown. It was therefore 
the interest of the payer to estimate his property as 
low, and of the tax-gatherer to estimate it as high, 
as possible. Complaints were therefore continually 
made of the collectors entering men's houses, and 
searching their most secret apartments. In the eighth 
year of Edward III., the king directed those who were 
to levy the subsidy then granted, to compound with 



ABUSE OF THE PREROGATIVE OF PARDON. 119 

the dijfferent townships for a certain sum, which they 
were to raise among themselves, in what manner they 
pleased. This, then, became the rule ; and henceforth 
tenths and fifteenths were regarded as fixed sums, es- 
timated by the assessment of 8 Edw. III. The other 
sources of revenue, namely, the duties on wool, hides, 
and other exports, and the tonnage and poundage, or 
two shillings on every tun of wine, and sixpence on 
every pound of other goods imported, and the tolls at 
fairs, markets, etc., gave abundant occasions for com- 
plaint of the extortions of the royal officers. 

6. Another grievance, which was a frequent sub- 
ject of complaint, was the abuse of the prerogative 
of granting pardons. Robbers and other felons were 
thus continually withdrawn from the hands of justice, 
by the influence of some nobleman who protected 
them, or who sold them his good oflSces. In a peti- 
tion of the commons, in the twenty-second of Edward 
III., they pray that, "whereas it is notorious how 
robbers and malefactors infest the country, the king 
would charge the great men of the land that none 
such be maintained by them, privily or openly ; but 
that they lend assistance to arrest and take such evil- 
doers." For the barons, as the feudal system decli- 
ned, sought to keep up their power and influence by 
having at their devotion large bodies of dependants. 
These men were mostly of lawless and irregular hab- 
its ; and, if they lent their lord the aid of their arms 
in his private broils and contests, they expected to be 
supported by him in return, when, for their misdeeds, 
they had fallen into the hands of justice. As it was 
the custom of the lords to give liveries and badges to 
their retainers, which acted as a mark of union among 
them, statutes, as we have seen, were made to re- 
strain this practice ; but they were generally treated 
with neglect, and liveries were given as before. 

Another practice of the nobles, also a subject of 
constant complaint, was that of Maintenance, or con- 
federating to support each other in legal suits. Men 
were thus enabled to make forcible entry on lands 
which they claimed ; and the course of justice was 



120 STATE OF THE CONSTITUTION. 

impeded by influence or intimidation; parties in a 
suit, for example, being often prevented from appear- 
ing by armed bodies of men. 

During the Plantagenet period, the mode of raising 
armies underwent some alteration. As the feudal 
system was only adapted to defensive warfare, the 
kings, in their wars with France and Scotland, chiefly 
employed mercenary forces ; not merely the soldiers 
of fortune who were then so plentiful, but their own 
barons and knights, with whom they contracted for 
the service of themselves and their military followers, 
for certain periods, at certain rates. The crown, how- 
ever, frequently stretched its power, and forced the 
counties to send men-at-arms, and other soldiers, to 
serve in the royal army. They were to receive pay 
from the king ; but the expense of equipping the infe- 
rior men, and sending them to the army (known by 
the name of coat-and-conduct money), mostly fell on 
the counties, and was the subject of constant com- 
plaint. 

The troops consisted of, 1. Men-at-arms: these 
were the same as during the former period, except 
that now they wore plate-armour instead of the less 
cumbrous mail. 2. Hobblers, a species of light cav- 
alry. 3. Archers, who bore bows six feet in length, 
from which they sent those showers of arrows, a cloth- 
yard long, which won Creci and so many other fields. 
Occasionally the archers were mounted on horseback. 
4. The remaining foot-soldiers bearing spears ; among 
whom were generally a body of Welsh armed with 
lances and long knives, and frequently bands of the 
native Irish. 

The pay of these troops was enormously high : an 
earl or baron receiving from 6^. 8d. to 8.y. a day, a 
banneret* 4.v., a knight 2.?., an esquire or man-at-arms 
1^., a hobbler or mounted archer Qd., a foot-archer 3d., 

* A banneret was of an order of nobility between a baron and 
knight or esquire ; corresponding to that of baronet at the present 
day.— See Hallana's Middle Ages, p. 413, Harpers' ed. — Am. Ed 



PUNISHMENT OF CRIME. 121 

the rest 2d. Money is generally thought to have been 
of ten times more value then than it is now.* 

The royal navy was very small, consisting of mere- 
ly a few galleys and other ships. The Cinque Ports 
were, by their charter, obliged to furnish a fleet of 
fifty-seven sail whenever they were called on ; and 
the crown exercised the prerogative of pressing mer- 
chant vessels and seamen at its will. As cannon did 
not yet form a part of the equipment of a man-of-war, 
a merchant-man became such by merely putting sol- 
diers on board instead of a cargo : the usual comple- 
ment was sixty archers and forty other armed men. 
Both sailors and soldiers were paid by the crown : the 
seaman's pay was 3d. a day. 

The punishments of crime in this period were 
severe, and in many cases barbarous. A vigorous 
state of the public mind seems connected with a stern 
and rigorous execution of justice. Robbers and other 
felons (if not saved in the way already mentioned) 
were hung without mercy. The Peine forte et dure 
(severe and merciless torture) came into use in this 
period. This was employed when a prisoner refused 
to answer. He was laid on his back, naked, in a low, 
dark chamber ; and as great a weight of iron as he 
could bear, or perhaps more, was laid on him. On the 
first day he got three morsels of coarse bread ; on the 
second, three draughts of standing water ; and so on, 
till he answered or died.f 

Nothing could be more barbarous than the practice 
of embo welling traitors. The following account, in 

* Admitting the value of money to have been ten times greater 
then than at the present time, the daily pay of an earl or baron in 
the king's service was from ^16 to $19.20; that of a banneret, 
$9.60 ; of a knight, $4.80 ; of an esquire or man-at-arms, $2.40 ; 
of a hobbler or mounted archer, $1.20 ; of a foot-archer, 60 cts. ; 
and of the other soldiers, 40 cts. This certainly greatly exceeds 
the pay for service m the European armies at the present day. 
The pay of a Russian foot-soldier is about two cents a day, be- 
sides his rations and clothing. — Am. Ed. 

t This was not abolished by law till the middle of the 18th cen- 
tury. 

Vol. II.— L 



122 RELIGION OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 

the case of Sir Thomas Blount, executed in the first 
year of Henry IV., will give a lively idea of it.* " He 
was hanged, but the halter was soon cut, and he was 
made to sit on a bench before a great fire, and the ex- 
ecutioner came with a razor in his hand and knelt be- 
fore Sir Thomas, Avhose hands were tied, begging him 
to pardon his death, as he must do his office. Sir 
Thomas asked, ' Are you the person appointed to de- 
liver me from this world V The executioner answer- 
ed, ' Yes, sir ; I pray you pardon me.' And Sir 
Thomas kissed him and pardoned him his death. 
The executioner knelt down and opened his body, 
and cut out his bowels straight from below the stom- 
ach, and tied them with a string, that the wind of the 
heart should not escape, and threw the bowels into 
the fire. Then Sir Thomas was sitting before the 
fire, and his bowels burning before him. Sir Thomas 
Erpyngham, the king's chamberlain, insulting Blount, 
said to him in derision, ' Go seek a master that can 
cure you.' Blount only answered, ' Te deum lauda- 
mus (praised be God), blessed be the day on which I 
was born, and blessed be this day ; for I shall die in 
the service of my sovereign lord, the noble King Rich- 
ard.' The executioner knelt down before him, kissed 
him in an humble manner, and soon after his head was 
cut off", and he was quartered." 

The religious aspect of England at this time was 
also of a dark hue. We will briefly state what the 
religion of England really was in the fifteenth century. 

Among the doctrines taught by the clergy was tran- 
suhstantiation, or the doctrine which teaches that the 
bread and wine used in the Lord's Supper are con- 
verted into the real body and blood of Christ. Pope 
Gregory VH. either rejected this doctrine, or shrank 
from establishing it by the papal authority ; but the 
intrepid Innocent III., in the fourth council of Late- 
ran, in 1215, declared it to be the doctrine of the 
church. Our fathers were farther taught to believe, 

* Lingard, iv., 279, from a MS. Relacion, &c. 



RELIGION OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 123 

that the priest possessed the power of removing or 
mitigating the penalties of sin in the future world. 
They were told that, after death, the souls of all but 
innocent baptized babes, perfect saints, or the incorri- 
gibly wicked, were sent to a place, which was named, 
from its nature. Purgatory ; there to purge away by 
fire the stains of sin. The period of their sufferings 
might, however, be shortened by prayers and masses ; 
and the dying sinner, if wealthy, could, by leaving 
money to the church, obtain a relaxation or remission 
of his torments. He might also, at any time during 
his life, by paying money or by visiting some place 
of devotion, obtain an indulgence to exempt him from 
the punishment due to one or more of his transgres- 
sions : for one drop of Christ's blood, it was said, suf- 
ficing to redeem the whole world, all the rest of His 
merits, which were infinite, together with all that the 
saints had done beyond what was necessary for their 
own salvation,* went to compose an inexhaustible de- 
pository of merits for the benefit of sinful men. The 
custody of this was committed to the Holy See ; and 
money was the key that usually oped the precious 
treasure-house. 

Not only Peter and Paul, and the other apostles, 
but numerous martyrs and confessors, were canonized. 
These beatified saints were supposed to see in God 
all that took place on earth ; to listen to the prayers 
addressed to them by their votaries below ; and to 
exercise their power or mediation in their favour. 
Above all in rank and power was the Virgin Mary ; 
bom, as it was said, without sin, dead without pain, 
and translated bodily, like her divine son, to heaven, 
where she still exercised over him the mild authority 
of a mother. Such were declared to be the Virgin 
and the saints in heaven : and on earth churches and 
festivals were dedicated, and prayers were off"ered to 

* Called works of supererogation, as being over and above what 
was required by duty, and respecting which Archbishop Tillotson 
observes, *' There is no such thing as works of supererogation : 
no man can do more than needs, and is his duty to do, by way of 
preparation for another world."— ^m. Ed. 



124 RELIGION OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 

them ; their relics, that is, their bones, their hair, the 
very parings of their nails, and the fragments of their 
garments, or the implements of their torture, were 
enclosed in costly cases, adorned with precious gems, 
and worshipped by the people. Their images, espe- 
cially those of the Virgin, were also the objects of 
adoration ; pilgrimages were made to them, and rich 
offerings deposited on their shrines. 

The clergy themselves, we may believe, such was 
the deep and universal delusion and darkness of the 
times, believed implicitly in the popular rehgion. But 
their belief stood not in the way of their inventing the 
most monstrous and absurd fables of the miracles per- 
formed by the saints or their relics, and thus extorting 
money or lands from their credulous votaries. By 
means of these, and of the doctrines of purgatory and 
merits, the church had gradually contrived to gain 
possession of one fifth of the lands of the kingdom. 
The morals of the clergy, as were those of all classes 
in these dark and degenerate days, were in general 
profligate ; though, beyond question, there were among 
them many shining models of piety and goodness. 

Ignorance and immorality are usual, though not 
necessary companions. We may, therefore, not be 
surprised to find that the great bulk of the clergy were 
grossly ignorant. But few of them knew the meaning 
of the prayers which they repeated daily in an un- 
known tongue ; and to read and study the Scriptures, 
even in the Latin version, was regarded as needless to 
those whose rehgion was almost totally made up of 
forms and ceremonies. The ignorance of the laity 
was still greater than that of their spiritual guides. 

We are not, however, to suppose that the mind of 
Europe was totally enthralled to superstition in these 
times. It was far otherwise, as the dreadful crusade 
against the Albigenses, and the persecution of the 
Lollards and other heretics, as they were styled, too 
clearly prove. Though the spiritual power exerted 
itself to the utmost, though it filled the prisons with 
those who dared to think, and kindled the piles for those 
who refused to recant, the light of truth still continued 



RELIGION OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 125 

to spread, and more and more was sown every day of 
the seed which was destined to yield an abundant har- 
vest of mental liberty. We have now strong grounds 
for believing that Dante, Petrarca, and their fellows, 
whose genius sheds so bright a lustre on the middle 
ages, were but the organs of an extensive sect or 
party, whose bond of union was hostility to the Papal 
See, its claims, its doctrines, and its practices.* The 
middle ages thus rise in moral dignity, while we view 
in them the struggle of man's intellectual nature 
against superstition upheld by fraud and cruelty ; and 
we learn to acknowledge our debt of gratitude to the 
men, whose unremitting efforts achieved the victory 
of which we now enjoy the benefits. f 

* The writer here alludes to what he regards as the extraordi- 
nary discoveries of his most valued friend, Professor Gabriele Ros- 
setti, in his " Comento Anahtico" on Dante, his " Spirito Antipa- 
pale de' Classici Itaiiani," and his " Misterio dell' Amor Platonico." 
He at the same time will not pledge himself for the correctness of 
all the theories and opinions in those important works, as on some 
points he differs with the profound and sagacious author. 

t The canon of Holy Writ was as yet a " sealed book," not only 
to the great mass of the people of England, but throughout Chris- 
tendom. It had, it is true, been translated by Wickliffe into the 
vernacular tongue; but then its distribution was watchfully for- 
bidden and prevented, as though it were sinful for the people to 
read the very records on which their religious faith and hopes 
were founded. May we not, in a great measure, attribute to this 
absence of the Sacred Scriptures the dreadful state of demoraliza- 
tion, the shocking barbarities and corruptions, portrayed in the 
preceding pages? It has been undoubtedly the highest blessing 
of the Reformation, that it has spread far and wide a knowledge 
of the Word of God ; nor is it possible, so long as the fountain of 
this knowledge remains unsealed, and its purifying and healing 
waters are permitted to flow freely over the moral waste of the 
world, that mankind, sinful and imperfect as they still are, should 
be plunged again into a night of intellectual and moral darkness, 
such as overshadowed the middle ages. We cannot over estimate 
the extent of our obligations for the improved moral, civil, and so- 
cial condition of society to the teachings of this sacred book. 
— ^m. Ed. 

L2 



HOUSE OF TUDOR. 



CHAPTER I. 

HENRY VII.* 

1485-1509. 

The Sweating Sickness. — King's Marriage, — Lambert Simnell. — 
Battle of Stoke. — Coronation of the Queen. — Affairs of Brittany. 
— Perkin Warbeck. — Execution of the Earl of Warwick. — Mar- 
riage and Death of Prince Arthur, — The King's Avarice. — His 
Death and Character. 

The first act of the new king was to direct, that the 
Princess Elizabeth and her cousin, the Earl of War- 
wick, whom the late usurper had placed at Sheriff- 
Hutton in Yorkshire, should be conveyed to London : 
the former to be restored to her mother, the latter 
to be immured in the Tower. He then proceeded by 
easy journeys to the capital. On the 28th of August 
the lord-mayor and aldermen met him without the 
city. He passed through the streets in a close litter 
to St. Paul's, where a Te Deum was chanted, and then 
took up his abode at the house of the bishop. While 
there, he solemnly renewed his engagement to marry 
the Princess Ehzabeth; but declined espousing her 
till after he had been crowned and held a parliament. 

The coronation would have taken place immediately 
but for the prevalence of a disease, named, from its na- 
ture, the Sweating Sickness. It was a rapid fever, 
carrying people off in four-and-twenty hours ; and, if 
they survived this length of time, they were almost 
sure of recovery. It continued only a month ; and 
was believed to be in the atmosphere, and not an epi- 
demic or contagious malady. 

* Authorities : Bacon, Polydore Virgil, Hall, Fabyan, and the 
other chroniclers. 



1485.] henry's title to the crown. 127 

The king was crowned on the 30th of October by 
the primate. He was frugal of his honours on this 
occasion ; only making twelve bannerets, and raising 
his uncle, Jasper Tudor, earl of Pembroke, to the dig- 
nity of Duke of Bedford, Lord Stanley to that of Earl 
of Derby, and Sir Edward Courtenay to that of Earl 
of Devon. He appointed a body of archers to attend 
him in future, under pretext of imitating the state of 
foreign princes. They were named Yeomen of the 
Guard.* 

When parliament met, on the 11th of November, 
the most important matter which occupied it was the 
settlement of the crown. Henry's title rested on three 
grounds : his pledged marriage with Elizabeth, his de- 
scent from the house of Lancaster, and the right of 
conquest. The last was too odious to be put forward 
prominently ; while the first was disagreeable to his 
own prejudices and those of his Lancastrian adhe- 
rents, and would only secure the succession to his 
issue by EUzabeth. "He therefore," says Bacon, 
" rested on the title of Lancaster in the main,! using 
the marriage and the victory as supporters ;" and in 
the act of settlement it was merely declared, that " the 
inheritance of the crown should be, rest, remain, and 
abide in the most royal person of the then sovereign 
lord King Henry VH. and the heirs of his body law- 
fully coming." As all mention of the princess seemed 
studiously avoided, those of both parties who had 
looked forward to the termination of the differences 
between the white and the red rose, grew alarmed. 
Shortly after, on the 10th of December, the commons 
took occasion to petition the king to take the princess 
to wife : the peers readily expressed their concur- 
rence ; Henry gave a gracious promise ; and, during 

* The soldiers composing the body-guard of the English sov- 
ereigns are still distinguished by this nanie.— ^m. Ed. 

t No title could be weaker than this. Henry claimed through 
his mother (who was still alive), the sole heiress of the Duke of 
Somerset, descended from one of the children whom Catharine 
Swynford bore to John of Gaunt before marriage, and who, when 
.legitimated, were expressly excluded from all claim to the crown. 



128 HENRY VII. [1486. 

the recess, on the 18th of January, 1486, he espoused 
Elizabeth. 

In this parhament, an act of attainder was passed 
against Richard III. duke of Norfolk, his son the 
Earl of Surrey, the lords Lovel, Zouch, Ferrers, and 
about twenty-four others : all grants made by the 
crown since the 34th of Henry VI. were resumed ; 
and a general pardon was issued, in the king's name, 
to all the adherents of the late usurper. 

After the dissolution, the king set out on a progress 
through the kingdom; and, as the north had been 
most attached to Richard, he proceeded thither first, 
hoping to gain the people by spending the summer 
among them. While he was keeping Easter at Lin- 
coln, he heard that Lord Lovel had left his sanctuary 
at Colchester ; and, when he reached Pontefract, he 
learned farther that he had raised a force, and intend- 
ed surprising him on his entry into York. But this 
lord, finding the royal train too numerous, gave up 
his project ; and, having permitted his followers to 
disperse, made his own escape to Flanders. The 
king remained three weeks at York, and then returned 
to London, by way of Worcester, Gloucester, and 
Bristol. During his absence, the queen held her court 
at Winchester, with her mother and sisters, and her 
mother-in-law, the Countess of Richmond. Here, on 
the 20th of September, she gave birth to her first child, 
a son, who was named Arthur, after the famous Brit- 
ish hero, from whose lineage the king affected to be 
sprung on the father's side. 

The evident favour shown by the king to the Lan- 
castrian party gave great offence to the Yorkists ; 
they were also displeased at the want of respect to 
the queen in deferring her coronation ; the manners 
of the king too were cold and repulsive, totally dif- 
ferent from those of the former kings of England. 
This state of discontent was taken advantage of for 
introducing the most extraordinary imposture record- 
ed in history ; for, though many have personated dead 
or missing princes, who ever heard of an impostor 



I486.] LAMBERT SIMNELL. 129 

pretending to be a prince who was known to be alive, 
and could be produced at any time 1 

There was a priest at Oxford named Richard Si- 
mons or Symmonds : a man of a subtle, enterprising 
temper. He had a pupil about the age of fifteen 
years, named Lambert Simnell, the son of a baker, or, 
as others said, of an organ-maker. This youth was of 
a handsome, engaging countenance ; and the priest, 
whether actuated by hopes of great advantages to 
himself if the imposture should succeed, or, as is more 
probable, acting merely as the agent of higher per- 
sons, instructed him to assume the character of Rich- 
ard duke of York; who, it was rumoured, had es- 
caped from the Tower in the late reign. But, on a re- 
port of the escape of the young Earl of Warwick, 
Simons, or his directors, changed the plan ; and it was 
agreed that Simnell should personate this prince. As 
during the abode of the Duke of York in Ireland, as 
chief governor in the time of Henry VI., the Anglo- 
Irish had become strongly attached to his person, 
family, and cause, it was resolved that the drama 
should open in that country. Accordingly, Simons 
and his pupil landed in Dublin, where the Earl of Kil- 
dare, the lord deputy, without hesitation or inquiry, at 
once acknowledged the pretended Plantagenet. His 
example was followed by the nobility and people in 
general. The Butlers of Ormond, a few of the pre- 
lates, and the citizens of Waterford alone adhered to 
the cause of King Henry. 

When these events reached the ears of Henry, he 
summoned a great council of peers and prelates ; and, 
by their advice, published a full pardon to all his for- 
mer opponents : for the preceding one had been so 
clogged with conditions, and had been violated in so 
many points, as to have failed of its great object. He 
then had the Earl of Warwick led from the Tower to 
St. Paul's, and thence brought to the Palace of Shene, 
where the nobility and all others had daily opportuni- 
ties of conversing with him. The king next (and this 
is a measure that has never been accounted for at all 
satisfactorily) seized the goods of the queen-dowager, 



130 HENRY VII [1487. 

and confined her in the convent of Bei mondsey. The 
pretext assigned is, that she had put her daughters 
into the power of the late usurper ; but surely, if she 
did so to make her daughter a queen, it was not to be 
thence inferred that she would now engage in a plot 
to dethrone her ! 

The Earl of Lincoln, whom Richard had declared 
heir to the throne, and whom Henry had treated with 
favour, now took the side of the pretender ; and, hav- 
ing established a correspondence with Sir Thomas 
Broughton of Lancashire, went privately to the court of 
Margaret, the duchess-dowager of Burgjndy, who, as 
Bacon observes, " having the spirit of a man and the 
malice of a woman, abounding in treasure by the 
greatness of her dower and her provident government, 
and being childless and without any nearer care, made 
it her design and enterprise to see the majesty royal 
of England once again replaced in her house ; and she 
bare such a mortal hatred to the house of Lancaster, 
and personally to the king, as that she was no ways 
mollified by the conjunction of the houses in her 
niece's marriage, but rather hated her niece as the 
means of the king's ascent to the crown and assurance 
therein." This may account for Margaret's readily 
engaging in the project. As for Lincoln, he may have 
hoped, if the present king should be overthrown, to 
make good his title against the pretender, the real 
Warwick, and the daughters of King Edward. 

Margaret having furnished Lincoln and Lord Level 
with a body of two thousand German veterans, com- 
manded by an able officer named Martin Schwartz, 
they sailed for Ireland in 1487, and landed at Dublin. 
By the advice of Lincoln, the impostor was crowned 
on the 24th of May, as Edward VI., by the Bishop of 
Meath : a crown for the occasion having been taken 
from the statue of the Virgin. Tlie new king was 
then borne from the cathedral to the castle, on the 
shoulders of a gigantic chieftain of English blood, 
named Darcy. A parliament was summoned, and im- 
mediate preparations were made for invading Eng- 
land ; and, but ten days after, on the 4th of June, the 



1487.] 



BATTLE OF STORE. 131 



troops of the pretender effected a landing at Fumess 
in Lancashire ; where, being joined by the tenantry of 
Sir Thomas Broughton, they pushed on for Yorkshire. 
The king in the mean time had assembled his troops 
at Kenilworth, whence he advanced to Nottingham. 
Every day he was joined by additional troops, while 
Lincoln found all his efforts vain to rouse the parti- 
sans of the house of York. He resolved to make 
himself, if possible, master of the town of Newark ; 
but the king got between him and that place, and, on 
the 16th, the two armies came in sight of each other 
at Stoke. Urged by despair, though his troops did 
not exceed eight thousand men, Lincoln accepted the 
proffered combat. The battle lasted but three hours, 
and ended in the destruction of the rebels, one half of 
whom were slain. Most of their leaders perished : 
Lincoln, SchAvartz, Sir Thomas Broughton, the Earl 
of Kildare, and his brother, Maurice Fitzgerald, re- 
mained dead on the field. Lord Lovel was seen to 
escape, but he was never seen or heard of after.* 
Simons and his pupil were taken prisoners ; the for- 
mer, being made to confess the imposture, was thrown 
into prison, where he died ; the latter was made a 
turnspit in the royal kitchen ; and he was afterward 
raised to the more important office of one of the 
king's falconers. Thus ended this strange insurrec- 
tion. 

The king, who always felt or affected great devo- 
tion, caused a Te Deum to be sung at Lincoln, whither 
he proceeded after the battle ; and he sent his banner 
to be offered to Our Lady of Walsingham, to whom he 
had made his vows. He then made a progress, or, ra- 
ther, judicial circuit through the North, where hepun- 

* "Towards the close of the 17th century, at his seat at Min- 
ster-Lovel in Oxfordshire, was discovered a chamber under ground, 
in which was the skeleton of a man seated in a chair, with his 
head reclined on a table. Hence it is supposed that the fugitive 
had found an asylum in this subterraneous chamber, where he 
was perhaps starved to death through neglect." (Lingard, from 
West's Furness, p. 210.) This incident has acquired additional 
interest from the use made of it in a romance, the scene of which 
is in the same neighbourhood. 



132 HENRY VII. [1487. 

ished the aiders and abettors of the rebels, in a few 
cases with death, but in most by fines and ransoms, 
which mode was more congenial to his feelings, as it 
brought money into his coffers. On his return to Lon- 
don, aware of the impolicy of having so long deferred 
the queen's coronation, he caused that ceremony to 
be performed with great magnificence. For this pur- 
pose, having been lodged, according to custom, in 
the Tower, she was conveyed on Saturday, Novem- 
ber the 24th, to Westminster, in a litter, over which 
four knights held a canopy of cloth of gold. She was 
attired in white cloth of gold damask, with a mantle 
of the same, furred with ermine. " Her faire yelow 
haire," says our authority,* " hung downe pleyne by- 
hynde her bak with a calle of pipes over it." Several 
other litters, and four baronesses mounted on gray 
palfreys, followed. On Sunday she was crowned-,: 
and she then dined in state in the hall. The Lady 
Catharine Grey and Mistressf Ditton went and sat at 
her feet under the table ; and the countesses of Ox- 
ford and Rivers knelt at each side of her, holding a 
kerchief at times before her. The king viewed the- 
whole from behind a lattice. 

Henry was now able to turn his attention to foreign 
affairs ; and, as the Scots were the people who could 
give him greatest annoyance, he took advantage of 
the friendly feehng which their king, James III., had 
towards him, to establish a truce for seven years be- 
tween their respective kingdoms ; and, to strengthen 
their amity, it was arranged that James, who was now 
a widower, should marry the queen-dowager, and his 
two sons two of her daughters.l This project, how- 
ever, was frustrated, as the King of Scots was mur- 
dered the following year by his turbulent subjects. 
Henry renewed the truce with his son and successor. 

* Leland, Coll., iv., 216, seq., ap. Lingard, v., 291. 

t As we should now say, Miss. Mistress was formerly the title 
of unmarried young ladies. 

t Rymer, xii., 329. This fact, first adverted to by Lingard (v. 
293), seems to disprove completely the common notion, that Henry 
treated his mother-in-law with great and unnecessary harshness. 



1488.] 



AFFAIRS OF BRITTANY. 133 



The affairs of Brittany were at this time in a very 
critical condition. It was the only one of the great 
fiefs, except Burgundy, which had not been reunited 
to the crown of France ; its duke was far advanced in 
years, and his only children were two daughters. 
The eldest, Anne, Avho was now in her thirteenth 
year, was sought in marriage by Maximilian, king of 
the Romans, by the Duke of Orleans, and by the Lord 
d'Albret of Beam. But the young King of France, 
Charles VIII., who, as being contracted to the daugh- 
ter of Maximihan, could not seek the hand of Anne, 
was resolved to assert some ancient feudal claim, and 
take possession of the duchy. Some time after, the 
French troops entered Brittany ; both sides applied to 
Henry. His parliament gave him funds, and urged 
him to aid the duke ; but, though he took their money, 
he heeded not their advice. The French arms still 
advanced in 1488, and the duke was obliged to sign a 
treaty, allowing Charles to retain his conquests, and 
binding himself not to marry either of his daughters 
without the consent of his superior lord. A few 
weeks after, the duke and his youngest daughter both 
died. Charles then claimed the succession, renewed 
the war, and soon made himself master of one half of 
the duchy. 

The English nation was eager to take the part of 
the persecuted princess. The parliament, when sum- 
moned, again freely granted supplies : " yet," says 
Bacon, " the subsidy granted bare a fruit that proved 
harsh and bitter. All was inned at last into the king's 
barn, but it was after a storm." The people of Dur- 
ham and Yorkshire refused to pay the tax imposed on 
them ; the collectors appealed to the Earl of North- 
umberland, who wrote to the court for instractions ; 
the king replied that he would not abate a penny ; the 
earl then assembled the freeholders, and delivered the 
harsh mandate in a harsh manner ; the people became 
irritated ; and, attacking the earl's house, slew him- 
self and some of his servants. An insurrection now 
broke out, headed by Sir John Egremont and a low 
fellow named John a Chamber. The king sent troops 

Vol. II.— M 



134 HENRY VII. [1488-1492. 

against them under the Earl of Surrey, whom he had 
pardoned and released from the Tower ; and the in- 
surgents were speedily routed. Egremont escaped to 
the Duchess of Burgundy; but Chamber was taken 
and executed at York. 

A body of six thousand men, under Lord Willough- 
by de Brook, was now sent to Brittany ; but, as they 
were forbidden to act on the offensive, they proved of 
little use ; and, as soon as the six months of their 
service were expired, they returned home. The 
duchess afterward, in 1491, married Maximilian by 
proxy ; but the King of France, having gained over 
her counsellors, and supporting their arguments by the 
terror of his arms, forced her to rescind that contract 
and become his queen. 

Henry, seeing Brittany thus lost, resolved, since he 
could do nothing else, to make money out of the af- 
fair. He summoned a parliament; and, pretending 
great indignation, on the 15th of October declared his 
determination to make war on France. The parlia- 
ment, always liberal on these occasions, readily grant- 
ed two tenths and two fifteenths ; and the king him- 
self renewed the practice of extorting money under 
the title of benevolence. We are told of a dilemma 
used by the Chancellor Morton on this occasion, which 
some styled his fork, and others his crutch. He di- 
rected the commissioners that, "if they met with 
any that were sparing, they should tell them that they 
must needs have, because they laid up ; and, if they 
were spenders, they must needs have, because it was 
seen in their port and manner of living." So, as the 
historian says, neither kind came amiss ; and the king, 
having thus got plenty of money, at length landed at 
Calais on the 2d of "October, 1492, with a force of 
sixteen hundred men-at-arms and twenty-five thou- 
sand foot ; whence he advanced in a few days, and 
laid siege to Boulogne. But this was all mere sham 
and pretence ; for negotiations for peace were going 
on all the time, and a treaty of peace and amity was 
finally concluded on the 3d of November, Charles 
engaging to pay, at the rate of 25,000 francs ($5000) 



1492.] PERKIN WAREECK. 135 

a year, the sum of i:i49,000 ($715,000), in satisfac- 
tion of all claims on his queen, and of the arrears of 
the annuity due to Edward IV. Henry then returned 
to England ; and his counsellors, who had all obtained 
presents and pensions from Charles, praised his wis- 
dom and pohcy ; but his nobles, many of whom had 
sold or pledged their estates to furnish themselves 
out for the war, were discontented, and said that " the 
king cared not to plume his nobility and people to 
feather himself." 

The Duchess of Burgundy, by the classic fancy of 
the age, was styled the king's Juno ; as being to him 
what that goddess was to the "pious jEneas." She 
was unrelenting in her hostility ; and, " at this time," 
says Bacon, " the king began again to be haunted with 
spirits, by her magic and curious arts." For, on the 
15th of May, just as he had declared war against 
France, a vessel from Portugal arrived at Cork in 
Ireland, on board of which was a young man of en- 
gaging mien, aged about twenty years. A rumour 
soon spread that he was Richard duke of York, who 
had escaped from the Tower. The answers he made, 
when questioned, satisfied his credulous auditors. 
The citizens, induced by O'Water, their late mayor, 
declared for him ; and the Earl of Desmond, the great 
southern chief, did the same; but the Earl of Kildare, 
when applied to, returned an ambiguous answer. 
Ere the pretender advanced any farther, he received 
an invitation from Charles to repair to France, which 
he accepted ; and, on his arrival, was treated as the 
true heir to the English crown. A guard of honour 
was assigned to him ; and the exiles, to the number 
of one hundred, offered him their services. Henry 
hastened the peace ; and, so soon as it was conclu- 
ded, Charles ordered the pretender to quit his domin- 
ions, having now made all the use of him he had pro- 
posed. He sought refuge with Margaret of Burgimdy, 
by whom he was received with open arms. She 
styled him the " White Rose of England," and gave 
him a guard of thirty halberdiers. 

The English Yorkists, anxious to ascertain the truthj 



136 HENRY vir. [1493-1495. 

sent over Sir Robert Clifford as their secret agent ; 
and he reported that he was the real Duke of York. 
The king also despatched his emissaries in 1493, in 
order to find out who he really was ; and the result of 
their inquiries is said to have been, that his name was 
Peterkin or Perkin (i. e., Little Peter) Osbeck or 
Warbeck, the son of a converted Jew of Tournay ; 
that, by frequenting the society of the English mer- 
chants in Flanders, he had acquired their language 
and manners ; that the Lady Margaret had fixed upon 
him as a proper person to personate her nephew ; and 
that, fearing he would be suspected if he came direct 
from Flanders, she had sent him to Lisbon in the ser- 
vice of Lady Brompton, the wife of one of the exiles. 
The king now required of the Archduke Phihp, the 
sovereign of Burgundy, to banish or surrender War- 
beck; but he replied that he could not control the 
duchess in the lands of her dower. Henry, in re- 
venge, withdrew the mart of English cloth from An- 
twerp, and forbade all intercourse between the two 
countries. 

The gifts and promises of the king had gained Clif- 
ford, who communicated to him the names of the lead- 
ing Enghsh Yorkists who were in correspondence 
with the partisans of the pretender ; and, on the same 
day, in 1494, the Lord Fitz waiter and several others 
were arrested on a charge of treason. Sentence of 
death was passed on them. Sir Simon Mountfort, Sir 
Thomas Thwaites, and Robert RadcHfFe,were execu- 
ted at once ; Fitzwalter was imprisoned at Calais, and 
the rest were pardoned. But a greater victim was to 
fall. After celebrating Christmas, Henry, on the 7th 
of January, 1495, removed his court to the Tower, 
where Clifford was brought before him, and received 
his pardon on his knees. Being required to reveal all 
he knew of the conspiracy, he named the lord-cham- 
berlain, Sir William Stanley, who had saved the king's 
life at Bosworth. The king affected great horror, and 
refused to believe him ; Clifford persisted, and Stan- 
ley, when examined the next day, actually confessed 
the charge. He was tried, condemned, and some time 



1496.] PERKIN WARBECK. 137 

after beheaded ; and, as his personal property, much 
exceeding 40,000 marks ($102,000), and his lands, 
yielding jGSOOO ($14,400) a year "of old rent," says 
Bacon, " a great matter in those times," fell to the 
king, they were thought to have stood in the way of 
his pardon. It is, however, probable that he was 
really guilty of some words or acts inconsistent with 
perfect loyalty. The chief charge against him seems 
to have been his having said, " If I were sure that 
that young man were King Edward's son, I would 
never bear arms against him."* 

The pretender had now lain idle for three years, and 
the Flemings and the archduke were complaining of 
the losses which he caused them. He therefore 
found it necessary to make an effort ; and, while 
Henry was spending some time with his mother at 
Latham, in Lancashire, he landed a few hundred ad- 
venturers at Deal in Kent, on the 3d of July. But 
the people of the country rose, killed several of them, 
took one hundred and fifty prisoners, and drove the 
rest to their boats. The prisoners were led to Lon- 
don, " all railed in ropes, like a team of horses in 
cart ;" and, by the king's order, they were hanged 
there, or on different parts of the coast. Perkin re- 
turned to the Netherlands ; but the great treaty of 
commerce which was signed the next year between 
them and England having deprived him of his asylum 
there, he put to sea once more. He now, in 1496, 
sailed to Cork ; but he found no countenance there, 
as Henry had secured the obedience of the Irish. He 

* Avarice was the ruling passion of Henry ; and there would 
seem to be little doubt that, to gratify this base and grasping pas- 
sion, he abstained not fronni sacrificing the man to whom he was 
indebted for his life and kingdom. " It would have been wonder- 
ful," says Sir James Mackintosh, "if, under the reign of a miser 
and extortioner, one principal motive to the execution were not 
believed to be the confiscation of the property of the most afflu- 
ent of English noblemen. Indeed, the causes of Stanley's mon- 
strous execution assigned by Bacon, an historian sufficiently fa- 
vourable to the king, are such as to warrant very odious suspi- 
cions '—Mackintosh's History of England, ii., 72, Harpers' edition. 
^Am. Ed. 

M2 



138 HENRY VII. [1497. 

therefore departed, and directed his course to Scot- 
land; where, having, it is said, presented to King 
James letters from the King of France and the Lady- 
Margaret, he was received with all due honour; and 
the king gave him in marriage the Lady Catharine 
Gordon, daughter of the Earl of Huntley, and a near 
relation of his own. In the winter of 1497, the king 
assembled an army of borderers and invaded North- 
innberland ; the adventurer, v/ho had a body of about 
fourteen hundred English and other outlaws with him, 
issued a proclamation, calhngon his loyal subjects to 
arm in his cause, and enumerating the crimes of Hen- 
ry Tudor, as he styled the king. But the English 
took no heed. The King of Scots then began to burn 
and waste the country ; at which Perkin, it is said, 
was, or affected to be, greatly moved, declaring " that 
no crown was so dear to his mind as that he desired 
to purchase it with the blood and ruin of his coun- 
try." James, half in jest, made answer, "that he 
doubted much he was careful for that was none of his ; 
and that he should be too good a steward for his ene- 
my to save the country to his use." 

The king used the pretext of this inroad to call a 
parhament and obtain a subsidy. The tax was paid 
in most places ; but in Cornwall the people, excited 
by the harangues of one Michael Joseph, a blacksmith 
or farrier of Bodmin, and one Thomas Flammock, a 
prating lawyer, assembled in arms, to the number of 
sixteen thousand men, and marched to London, to pe- 
tition the king to punish the primate Morton and Sir 
Reginald Grey, whom they regarded as the authors 
of this impost. At Wells they were joined by the 
Lord Audley, whom they made their leader. They 
then advanced into Kent, and encamped on Black- 
heath, within view of London. The king, who had 
his troops assembled, prepared to give them battle. 
He divided his army into three parts ; of which one, 
under the Earl of Oxford, was to get in the rear of the 
hill on which the rebels were posted ; the second, un- 
der D'Aubigny, the lord-chamberlain, was to attack 



1497.] 



PERKIN WARBECK. 139 



them in front ; while the third, under himself in per- 
son, was to remain as a reserve in St. George's Fields. 
On Saturday, June 22d (the king's lucky day, as he 
esteemed it), the attack was made. The advanced 
guard of the rebels defended Deptford Bridge at first 
stoutly ; but they were at length driven back to their 
main body. D'Aubigny then gained the hill, and they 
scattered and fled in all directions. About two thou- 
sand of them were slain, and fifteen hundred taken, 
among which last were their three leaders. Lord 
Audley was beheaded ; Flammock and Joseph were 
hanged at Tyburn, and all the rest were pardoned. 

Meantime the King of Scots again poured his light 
troops over the borders, and scoured the country as 
far as the Tees ; but, on the approach of the Earl of 
Surrey, he retired ; and soon after, under the media- 
tion of the Spanish ambassador, a truce for seven 
years was concluded. The pretender then left Scot- 
land; and, having made another ineffectual attempt 
at Cork, sailed over to Whitsand Bay, in Cornwall, 
whence he advanced to Bodmin, and raised the ban- 
ner of Richard IV. The Cornishmen, to the number 
of three thousand, repaired to him ; and his army was 
doubled by the time he reached Exeter, to which 
town he laid siege. But, the citizens defending them- 
selves valiantly, and the nobility and gentry of the 
county coming to their aid, he retired, and led his men 
towards Taunton, at which place the royal army had 
now arrived. During the day, on the 20th of Sep- 
tember, he made all ready for battle with great alac- 
rity ; but, about midnight, he secretly departed with 
about sixty horse, and took sanctuary at Bewdley or 
Beaulieu, in the New Forest. The rebels next day, 
finding themselves abandoned, submitted, and were 
all pardoned, except a few of the ringleaders. Some 
horsemen were sent to St. Michael's Mount, to take 
the Lady Catharine Gordon, who had been left there 
by her husband, " whom," says the historian, " in all 
fortunes she entirely loved, adding the virtues of a 
wife to the virtues of her sex." When she was 



140 HENRY VII. [1498. 

brought to the king, he treated her with great kind- 
ness ; and he afterward placed her about the queen, 
and assigned her an honourable pension. The name 
of the White Rose, originally "given to her husband's 
false title, was continued in common speech to her 
true beauty."* 

A guard was placed round the sanctuary, to prevent 
the escape of Perkin ; and, seeing that he had no 
hopes remaining, on the 5th of October he consented 
to leave it on promise of a pardon. The king did not 
admit him into his presence, but he had his liberty, 
and, on the return to London, he rode in the royal 
suite. On the way, multitudes flocked to gaze on 
him. When they came to London, he was led on 
horseback through the city to the Tower, and back 
to Westminster. He was ordered not to quit the 
precincts of the palace ; and was repeatedly examined 
about his history, a portion of which, as he related it, 
was made public. After six months, being weary of 
restraint, he contrived to escape, and made for the 
coast ; but he was so closely pursued, that he took 
sanctuary once more at the priory of Bethlehem at 
Shene. At the request of the prior, the king granted 
him his life ; but he was made to stand an entire day 
in the stocks at Westminster Hall, and the next day 
in Cheapside, and to read aloud the confession which 
he had made and signed. He was then, in 1498, com- 
mitted to the Tower. 

In his imprisonment Warbeck contrived to form an 
intimacy with the unhappy Earl of Warwick. This 
ill-fated youth had spent nearly his whole life in 
prison, merely because he happened to be a real 
Plantagenet. Being secluded from all society, his 
faculties were never developed; and his ignorance 
was such, that, as the chronicler says, " he could not 
discern a goose from a capon." He gave in to the 
projects of the pretender for their escape ; and four 

* She afterward married a Welsh knight, named Sir Matthew 
Craddock (or Caradoc) ; and lies buried in the church of Swan- 



1498.] THE LAST OF THE PLANTAGENETS. 141 

servants of the lieutenant, it is said, were gained, who 
were to murder their master and then convey the 
prisoners to a place of safety. But the plot was dis- 
covered in time ; Perkin was then tried and convicted 
of treasons committed by him after his landing in the 
kingdom ; and, on the 16th of November, he was exe- 
cuted at Tyburn, where he once more read his con- 
fession and averred its truth.* Warwick was ar- 
raigned before the house of peers, for conspiring with 
Perkin to raise sedition and to destroy the king ; the 
poor innocent youth pleaded guilty, and was beheaded 
on Tower Hill on the 28th of November. 

Such was the end of the last male of the Plantage- 
nets. His fate was lamented by the whole nation ; 
and people did not hesitate to say, that the late plot 
had been only a device of the king, to have a pretext 
for destroying him : for he felt that, as long as War- 
wick lived, he had no chance of peace. Even this 
very year, a young man of Suffolk, named Ralph Wil- 
ford, aided by one Patrick, a friar, had personated the 
young earl in Kent ; and, though they had no success, 
and the former was executed and the latter imprison- 
ed for life, the attempt might be renewed. Those 
odious reasons of state, which are held to justify every 
crime, might therefore have induced the king to seize, 
if not make, the pretext for freeing himself from ap- 
prehension by shedding guiltless blood. But we are 
assured that it was not so much anxiety for his own 
safety, as the desire of procuring a high alliance for 
his son, that actuated Henry. He had been for some 
time in treaty with Ferdinand, king of Aragon, for a 
match between his eldest son and the infanta Catha- 
rine ; and he caused, it is said, letters out of Spain to 
be shown at this time, in which Ferdinand had writ- 
ten to him, " that he saw no hopes of his succession 
as long as the Earl of Warwick lived ; and that he 
was loath to send his daughter to troubles and dan- 
gers ;" and, many years after, that princess, on a sad 
occasion, declared " that she had not offended, but it 

* See Appendix (E). 



142 HENRY VII. [1498-1501. 

was a judgment of God, for that her former marriag-e 
was made m blood. "*t 

The king now had rest for the remainder of his 
reign. The state of ahtiost constant hostihty with 
Scotland was terminated in 1503, by a marriage be- 
tween, the King of Scots and Henry's eldest daughter 
Margaret. When some of his council expressed their 
fears that, in case of the failure of the male line, 
England might fall to the Iving of Scotland, the more 
sagacious monarch replied, " that, if that should be, 
Scotland would be but an accession to England, for 
that the greater would draw the less." Time has 
verified the prediction. 

The long-projected marriage between Prince Arthur 
and the Spanish infanta took place on the 14th of 
November, 1501, as soon as the prince had passed 
his fifteenth year. There were splendid festivities on 
the occasion ; and Ludlow, in Shropshire, was fixed 
upon as the abode of the young couple. But their 
connubial felicity was destined to an early blight ; for 
the amiable and accomplished prince fell sick, and 
died in the spring of the following year. The king, 
as soon as he overcame his grief, which was great, 
began to think how he still might retain the Spanish 
connexion, and get the princess's portion, which was 

* "Lord Bacon," says Mackintosh, " a Avitness against Henry 
above exception, positively affirms, that the flagitious correspond- 
ence had been seen in England ; and that it was shown by the 
king to excuse his assent to a deed of blood." Lingard. who 
would not willingly hear anything bad of Ferdinand the Catho- 
lic, speaks of it as a mere " report to remove the odium from the 
king." Cardinal Pole, however, Warwick's nephew, seems to 
have believed it ; for his biographers Beccatelli and Dudith both 
assert it, and evidently on his authority. 

t Sir .lames Mackintosh is clearly of the opinion that this 
whole affair was a plan got up by Henry himself, and for the rea- 
sons here stated, to rid himself of Warwick. In speaking of the 
character of the transaction, he says, " The extinction of such a 
harmless and joyless life, m defiance of justice and in the face of 
mankind, is a deed which should seem to be incapable of aggrava- 
tion ; but the motives of this merciless murder, the base interests 
to which the victim was sacrificed, and the horrible coolness of 
the two veteran tyrants who devised the crime, are aggravations 
perhaps without parallel." — Am. Ed. 



1503-1506.J DEATH OF THE QUEEN. 143 

200,000 crowns ($226,000) ; and, for this purpose, 
when it had become apparent that the late marriage 
had been fruitless,* it was arranged that his second 
son Henry, who was now twelve years old, should 
espouse his brother's widow when he attained the age 
of fifteen. The primate Warham strongly objected 
to this course, as contrary to the divine law ; but his 
scruples were not regarded ; and the necessary bull 
of dispensation w^as easily procured from Pope Ju- 
lius II. 

The following year, 1503, Henry lost his queen. 
As the dowager queen of Naples had been left an 
immense property by her husband, he had thoughts 
of seeking her hand ; but when he learned that the 
reigning king refused to let the devise oe executed, 
he laid his plan aside. 

On the death of Isabel, queen of Castile, her crown 
devolved to her daughter Joanna, who was married 
to- the Archduke Philip. As the new king and queen 
were sailing from the Netherlands to Spain in 1506, 
stress of weather drove them into Weymouth. As 
soon as Henry heard of their arrival, he sent to invite 
them to his court at Windsor, where he detained 
them for three months ; in which time he made 
Philip consent to a treaty of commerce, more to the 
advantage of England than the former one, and also 
to his marriage with his sister the dowager Duchess 
of Savoy. He moreover took advantage of the cap- 
tivity, as we may term it, of the archduke, to get into 
his power a man of whom he had some apprehen- 
sions. This was Edmund de la Pole, younger broth- 
er of the Earl of Lincoln, who was slain at Stoke. 
On the death of his father, the Duke of Suffolk, Ed- 
mund claimed the title and estates ; but Henry would 
only give him (and that as a boon) the title of earl, 
and a small part of the property. When he afterward 
had the misfortune to kill a man in a fit of anger, the 
king granted him a pardon, but commanded him to 
plead it openly in the Court of King's Bench. Suf- 

* Henry did not receive the title of Prince of Wales for some 
months after Arthur's death. 



144 HENRY VII. [1506. 

folk's pride was wounded ; and he retired to his aunt, 
the Duchess of Burgundy, Henry, however, induced 
him to return, and he was present at the marriage of 
Prince Arthur ; on which occasion the splendour of 
his equipages and other expenses involved him deeply 
in debt. Soon after he went away again ; and the 
king, then suspecting a conspiracy, directed Sir Rob- 
ert Curson, captain of the castle of Hammes, near 
Calais, to pretend to desert to him, and, if possible, to 
learn his secrets. On the information sent by Cur- 
son, the king arrested his own brother-in-law the Earl 
of Devon, Suffolk's brother William, Sir James Tyr- 
rel, Sir William Windham, and some others. The 
first two, against whom there was no charge but their 
kindred to Suffolk, were detained in prison ; and the 
last two were executed for having aided the king's 
enemy in 1502.* This crushed the conspiracy, if, 
indeed, there was one ; and Suffolk was now living in 
penury, in the archduke's dominions. 

One day Henry drew the archduke into a private 
room, and, laying his hand on his arm, said, " Sir, 
you have been saved upon my coast, I hope you will 
not suffer me to wreck upon yours." Philip asked 
him what he meant. " I mean by it," said he, " that 
same harebrain wild fellow, my subject, the Earl of 
Suffolk, who is protected in your country, and begins 
to play the fool when all others are weary of it.'* 
"I had thought, sir," replied Philip, "your felicity 
had been above these thoughts ; but, if it trouble you, 
I will banish him." " These hornets," said the king, 
" are best in their nests, and worst when they do fly 
abroad ; my desire is to have him dehvered to me." 
Philip mused, and said, " That can I not do with my 
honour, and less with yours ; for you will be thought 
to have used me as a prisoner." " Then," cried Hen- 
ry, " the matter is at an end ; for I will take that dis- 
honour upon me, and so your honour is saved." It 
was finally agreed that Suffolk should be induced to 
surrender, the king pledging himself not to touch his 

* It was on this occasion that Tyrrel confessed the murder ot 
the two princes in the Tower. 



1506.] THE king's avarice. 145 

life. He came, therefore, and was committed to the 
Tower, and Philip then departed. 

The king's avarice naturally increased with his 
years ; and he scrupled at no means of extorting mon- 
ey from his subjects. His chief agents were two able 
but unprincipled lawyers, Edmund Dudley and Rich- 
ard Empson : the former a man of good family, the 
latter the son of a sievemaker. These men, whom 
he made barons of the exchequer, by reviving dor- 
mant claims of the crown, by taking advantage of 
various ancient and nearly obsolete statutes, v/hich 
had created numberless offences punishable by fine, 
etc., and other modes, and by encouraging a host of 
informers, drew large sums into the royal coffers, 
and, at the same time, enriched themselves enormous- 
ly ; while, with the king, they drew upon themselves 
the maledictions of all classes of the people. 

If we may credit the following story, the king him- 
self equalled his agents in the art of taking advantage 
of the letter of the law, without regard either to good 
feeling or justice. He was once entertained by the 
Earl of Oxford, a man who had always been active 
and zealous in his cause. As he was departing from 
the castle, the earl's servants and retainers, dressed 
in his liveries, stood drawn up in two ranks to do the 
monarcli honour. " My lord," said the king, " I have 
heard much of your hospitality, but it is greater than 
the speech. These handsome gentlemen and yeomen 
that I see on each side of me are surely your menial 
servants." " That, may it please your grace," replied 
the earl, " were not for mine ease : they are most of 
them my retainers, come to do me service at a time 
like this, and chiefly to see your grace." Henry gave 
a start. " By my faith, my lord," said he, " I thank 
you for your good cheer, but I may not endure to have 
my laws broken in my sight. My attorney must speak 
with you." An act had been passed against this prac- 
tice in the beginning of his reign ; and the earl had to 
pay a fine of £10,000 ($48,000) for having thus hon- 
oured his king.* 

* Such was the extent and success of the rapacity of this mon- 

VoL. IL— N 



146 HENRY VII. [1509. 

Henry had been for some time subject to the gout : 
every year the attacks became more severe, and he 
was finally carried otf by one of them, on the 22d of 
April, 1509, in the fifty-third year of his age. On his 
deathbed he desired his son to put the Earl of Suffolk 
to death; and also, it is said, charged him not to 
marry his brother's widow. He forgave all offences 
against the crown, except murder and felony ; and di- 
rected that reparation should be made to all who had 
suffered by the injustice of his ministers. His re- 
mains were deposited in the splendid chapel founded 
by himself at Westminster Abbey, which still remains, 
a noble monument of the king's munificence, and of 
the taste and skill of those times in architecture. 

Henry VII. was personally brave, but he was a 
lover of peace. He was sagacious and circumspect, 
and could conceal his own designs while he penetra- 
ted those of others. He ^vas by nature distrustful, 
and appears to have been nearly incapable of friend- 
ship, or any strong attachment. His clemency to 
rebels on various occasions shows him not to have 
been of a cruel or sanguinary temper ; while his mur- 
der of the Earl of Warwick proves that he could even 
shed innocent blood out of policy. But the great 
blemish of his character was avarice. This low and 
grovelling passion tinged all his acts, led him to com- 
mit numerous deeds of oppression, and caused him to 
leave the world laden with the maledictions of his 
people. From the charge of studied neglect of his 
queen we think he has been cleared :* he seems to 
have treated her with as much affection as it was in 
his nature to show to any woman, perhaps with as 
much as she deserved, when we consider her inde- 
cent haste to marry her uncle, the murderer of her 
brothers.! 

arch, that he is said to have amassed in his private coffers, at the 
time of his death, the enormous sum of 1,600,000/., equivalent to 
lf),()00,OOOL (^76,800.000) at the present day. Like a true miser, 
he hid hi.s treasures in secret places, and kept them under his own 
lock and key. — Ain. Ed. 

* See Lingard, v., 327. 

t The character of this monarch, drawn by one of the most dis- 



STATUTES OF HENRY. 147 

The two following important statutes were passed 
in this reign : 

The statute of fines (4 Hen. VII.) was a re-enact- 
ment of one of Richard III. Its object was, by estab- 
lishing a short term of prescription, to check suits for 
the recovery of lands ; but it has been erroneously 
supposed to have been the result of a deep-laid scheme 
of Henry for humbling the aristocracy, by enabling 
them to alienate their lands. The statute of entails, 
or de donis (of gifts) of Edward I., had already been, 
in a great measure, rendered null by the legal artifice 
of suffering a recovery ; and all that the present stat- 
ute did, was to enact that a fine, levied with procla- 
mation in a coint of justice, should after five years 
be a bar to all claims on lands. 

The other statute (11 Hen. VII.) was one well 

criminating and philosophical of historians, is no less able thau 
just. " No generosity lent lustre to his purposes ; no tenderness 
softened his rigid nature. We hear nothing of any appearance of 
affection but that towards his mother, which it would be unnat- 
ural to treat as deserving praise, and which in him savoured more 
of austere duty than of an easy, delightful, and almost universal 
sentiment. His good qualities were useful but low ; his vices 
were mean; and no person m history of so much understanding 
and courage is so near being despised. He was a man of shrewd 
discernment, but of a mean spirit and a contracted mind. His 
love of peace, if it had flowed from a purer source, would justly 
merit the highest praise as one of the most important virtues of a 
ruler : but in Henry it is deeply tinged by the mere preference of 
craft to force, which characterizes his whole policy. In a word, 
he had no dispositions for which he could be admired or loved 
as a man. But he was not without some of the most essential of 
those qualities which preserve a ruler from contempt, and, in gen- 
eral, best secure him against peril : activity, perseverance, fore- 
sight, vigilance, boldness, both martial and civil, conjoined with a 
wariness seldom blended with the more active qualities, eminent- 
ly distinguished his unamiable but commanding character. 

" His religion, as far as we are informed, never calmed an an- 
gry passion, nor withheld him from a profitable wrong. He seems 
to have chosen it chiefly in the superstitious fears which haunted 
his deathbed, when he made a feeble attempt to make amends for 
irreparable rapine by restoring what he could no longer enjoy, and 
struggled to hurry through the formalities of a compromise with 
the justice of Heaven for his misdeeds." — Mackintosh's History 
of England, ii., 94, Harpers' edition. — Am. Ed. 



148 HENRY VIII. [1509. 

adapted to times in which the succession to the 
throne was so frequently disputed ; and was intended 
to obviate, to a certain extent, the distinction between 
a government de jure (of right) and one de facto (of 
fact), which is of so mischievous a nature. It enacted 
that no one should be punished for doing true and 
faithful service to the king for the time being. 

By another act (3 Hen. VII.) a court was appoint- 
ed, which was the germe of the future Star Chamber. 
To check the practice of maintenance and other ob- 
structions of justice, the chancellor, treasurer, keeper 
of the privy seal, or any two of them, v.ith a bishop 
and a lay lord of the council, and the two chief justi- 
ces, were empowered to call before them, and punish 
by fine and imprisonment, persons guilty of those of- 
fences. 

The New World was discovered by Columbus du- 
ring the reign of Henry VII. The British monarch, 
anxious to share in the advantages of this great event, 
commissioned Sebastian Cabot, a Venetian settled at 
Bristol, to fit out vessels for discovery and conquest 
in the lands beyond the western ocean. Cabot, in 
1497, discovered the coast of North America, from 
Labrador to the Gulf of Florida. 



CHAPTER II. 

HENRY VIII.* 

1509-1526. 

Execution of Empson and Dudley. — War with France ; with 
Scotland. — Battle of Flodden. — Wolsey. — The Field of the 
Cloth of Gold. — Execution of the Duke of Buckingham. — 
Wolsey deceived by the Emperor. 

The new monarch was just eighteen years of age, 
handsome in person, and popular in manners. The 

* Authorities : Polydore Virgil, Herbert, Hall, Stowe, and the 
other chroniclers. 



1509.] EMPSON AND DUDLEY IMPRISONED. 149 

claims of the White and Red Roses were united in 
him, so that all chances of a disputed title were re- 
moved. The unpopularity of the late king, through 
his avarice, made men look with joyful anticipation 
to the reign of a young and gallant prince ; and the 
treasures amassed by that avarice enabled him to ful- 
fil these expectations. 

Acting under the advice of his grandmother, the 
venerable Countess of Richmond, Henry retained all 
his father's faithful and experienced ministers. His 
next care was to celebrate his marriage with the 
Princess Catharine, which the crafty, interested poH- 
cy of their fathers had hitherto held in suspense. The 
ceremony was performed on the 24th of June, two 
months after his accession ; and their joint corona- 
tion immediately succeeded. For two years pleas- 
ure and amusement formed the sole occupation of the 
court of England. The king, who excelled in martial 
exercises, loved to display his address and vigour be- 
fore his consort, her ladies, the nobility, and the for- 
eign ambassadors ; and he frequently fought at bar- 
riers, and gained the prize in their presence. 

On the very day of his accession, to gratify the 
people, Henry had ordered Empson, Dudley, and their 
chief agents or promoters, as they were termed, to be 
arrested. The latter were pilloried, and then led on 
horseback through the city, with their faces to the 
horses' tails, and finally imprisoned for different terms. 
The former were charged before the council with hav- 
ing usurped the authority of the courts of law, kept 
heirs out of their lands, etc. Empson made an inge- 
nious and eloquent defence ; and these charges not 
proving tenable, and it being resolved not to let them 
escape, an absurd accusation of a design to secure the 
person of the young king on the death of his father, 
and make themselves masters of the government, was 
brought against them. On this, which every one 
must have known to be false, juries readily found 
them guilty. They were respited, however, and might, 
perhaps, have been suffered to linger out their lives in 
prison ; but the king was so harassed with complaints 



150 HENRY VIII. [1510. 

against them in his progress the following summer, 
1510, that he signed the warrant for their execution, 
and they suffered on Tower Hill. 

Our restricted limits will on this and on future oc- 
casions prevent our entering into details on the affairs 
of the Continent, in which England now began for the 
first time to take a part. A very slight sketch of them 
must therefore suffice at present. The great scene of 
political contention at this period was Italy, where the 
republics, with the exception of Venice and Genoa, 
had, after their brilliant but unquiet career, sunk under 
the despotism of petty princes. These little poten- 
tates, by their marriages and alliances with the trans- 
alpine royal houses, had caused the latter to have 
claims on various parts of Italy. Thus Charles VIII 
of France, and Ferdinand of Aragon, had obtained a 
pretext for making the conquest of Naples, from which 
the latter afterward expelled the former; and Louis 
XII. of France had lately, in right of his mother, made 
himself miister of the duchy of Milan. The emperor 
of Germany had a claim of feudal superiority over the 
different Itahan states ; while the valiant and turbu- 
lent, yet perhaps patriotic pontiff, Julius II., sought 
only to extend the papal dominions, to humble the 
pride of the Venetians, and then to drive the Barbari- 
ans (as the Italians styled the transalpine nations) out 
of Italy. The League of Cambray, formed in 1508, in 
which the pope, the emperor, and the kings of France 
and Spain united against the Venetians, sufficed to 
humble their haughty aristocracy before the pontiff ; 
but it gave occasion to hostilities between him and 
the King of France. Ferdinand, and, at his desire, his 
son-in-law of England, took the side of the pontiff; 
which party was also, after some hesitation, embraced 
by the Emperor Maximilian. 

Ferdinand, who never felt a generous sentiment, 
and thought only of his own interests, proposed to his 
son-in-law a joint invasion of Guienne, to which Hen- 
ry now asserted his right. The Spanish monarch's 
real object, however, as M^ill appear, was the acqui- 
sition of the small kingdom of Navarre, held, in right 
of his wife, by John d'Albret, lord of Beam, a vassal 



1512.] WAR WITH FRANCE. 151 

of the crown of France. It was agreed that Henry- 
should send a force of six thousand five hundred men, 
and Ferdinand one of nine thousand ; while a fleet, to 
be furnished in equal proportions, should keep the 
sea. Accordingly, in the month of June, 1512, the 
Marquis of Dorset landed with the English army in 
Guipuscoa ; while a fleet under the lord admiral, Sir 
Edward Howard, cruised all the summer in the Bay 
of Biscay. Dorset proposed marching at once against 
Bayonne ; but Ferdinand pretended that it was not 
safe to leave Navarre in their rear. A joint embassy 
was then sent to the King of Navarre, to demand his 
neutrality. To this he agreed ; but Ferdinand, aff"ect- 
ing to distrust him, required the surrender of his for- 
tresses. This being refused, the Duke of Alva enter- 
ed Navarre, and laid siege to Pampeluna, its capital, 
which was speedily reduced. The whole kingdom 
then submitted, and the king was obhged to seek a 
refuge in France. The Spanish general then called 
on Dorset to join in the invasion of Guienne ; but the 
latter was now grown mistrustful ; his troops were 
suff'ering from disease ; a spirit of mutiny had spread 
among them ; they demanded to be sent home ; and 
thougli, at the desire of the Spanish envoy, a herald 
was sent out with orders for them to remain, the)/" 
obliged their leaders to embark, and they landed at 
Portsmouth in December. Henry was at first greatly 
displeased, but he was at length satisfied with the 
explanations of the marquis. 

While the army was lying thus inactive in Spain, 
Sir Edward Howard made frequent descents on the 
coast of Brittany. At length, on the 12th of August, 
he fell in with the French fleet of twenty sail, com- 
manded by Admiral Primauget. Sir Charles Bran- 
don, without waiting for orders, bore down on the ad- 
miral's ship, the Cordelier of Brest. As this last was 
of great size, carrying a crew of sixteen hundred men, 
her fire quickly dismasted the English vessel, to whose 
aid Sir Thomas Knyvett hastened with the Regent, 
the largest ship in the English navy. The combat 
had lasted for more than an hour, when another ship 



152 HENRY VIII. [1513. 

came to the assistance of Knyvett. Primauget then, 
to save the honour of his flag, set fire to the Corde- 
lier ; and the flames spreading to the Regent, both 
vessels were consumed, and all on board of them per- 
ished. The rest of the French fleet escaped into 
Brest. Sir Edward Howard then made a vow never 
to see the face of the king till he had avenged the 
death of Sir Thomas Knyvett, A still larger ship, 
named the Henry Grace Dieu, was built to replace the 
Regent. The following year, on the 25th of April, 
Sir Edward Howard (whose maxim was that a sea- 
man, to be good for anything, should be brave even to 
madness), while blockading Brest, attempted, with 
two galleys and four boats, to cut out a squadron of 
six galleys, moored in a bay between rocks planted 
with cannon. Followed by no more than eighteen 
men, he leaped on board the largest vessel ; but his 
own galley chancing to fall astern, he and his com- 
panions were left alone ; and the crew with their 
pikes pushed them overboard, and they were drowned. 
The English fleet retired ; and the French, in return, 
insulted the coast of Sussex, till Sir Thomas How- 
ard, who had succeeded his brother, chased them into 
Brest. 

The king had now collected a gallant army of twen- 
ty-five thousand men for the invasion of France. 
Two divisions sailed under the Earl of Shrewsbury 
and the Lord Herbert ; and Henry himself followed 
on the 30th of June with the third, leaving the queen 
" rectrix and governor of the realm," and having pre- 
viously given orders for the execution of the Earl of 
Suffolk, who lay in the Tower. We have seen that 
the late king had enjoined him to rid himself of this 
nobleman if he would be safe ; and, as Suffolk's brother 
had been so imprudent as to take a command in the 
French army, and assume the title of the White Rose, 
the wrath of the king may have been thus excited 
against the unhappy prisoner. The envoys at for- 
eign courts were instructed to declare that a traitor- 
ous correspondence between the brothers had been 
discovered. 



1513.] 



WAR WITH FRANCE. 153 



The king loitered for some weeks at Calais, spend- 
ing his time in festivity, while his generals invested 
the city of Terouenne. At length, on the 4th of Au- 
gust, he entered the camp, where he was joined by 
the Emperor Maximilian with four thousand horse ; 
and this monarch, so high in dignity, to flatter the van- 
ity of his young ally, styled himself his volunteer, 
wore the red rose and St. George's cross, and accept- 
ed one hundred crowns a day as his pay. The French 
king had, on his part, advanced as far as Amiens for 
the relief of Terouenne. On the 16th of August he 
mustered his cavalry, so renowned in the wars of It- 
aly, at Blangi ; and it advanced in two divisions on 
the opposite banks of the river Lis. Maximilian led 
out his German horse and the English mounted arch- 
ers, while Henry followed with the infantry. A sud- 
den panic seized the French ; they turned, though 
greatly superior in numbers, and fled without striking 
a blow, leaving prisoners in the hands of the enemy 
their commander the Duke de Longueville, Bussi 
d'Amboise, the Chevalier Bayard, Clermont, Lafay- 
ette, and several other men of distinction. This rout 
was named the battle of Guinegate, from the place 
where it occurred ; but more usually that of Spurs, as 
the French made greater use of their spurs than of 
their swords. Terouenne now surrendered ; and the 
English army then advanced and laid siege to Tour- 
nai, which opened its gates on the eighth day, the 29th 
of September ; and Henry, having devoted some days 
to festivity, returned to England for the winter. 

Though the King of Scotland was Henry's brother- 
in-law, he shared, to the misfortune of himself and 
kingdom, in the war against him. The union be- 
tween the two British sovereigns had never been cor- 
dial : James had in vain demanded the jewels left by 
will to his queen by her late father ; to as little pur- 
pose had he required that the bastard, Heron of Ford, 
should be tried for the murder of Sir Robert Ker, war- 
den of the Scottish marches ; and, with far less jus- 
tice, he insisted on satisfaction for the death of An- 
drew Barton ; for, having granted letters of reprisal 



154 HENRY VIII. [1513. 

against the Portuguese to three brothers of this name, 
they took not merely Portugnese but EngUsh ships, 
under pretence of their carrying Portuguese property. 
On the repeated complaints of his subjects, Henry 
pronounced the Bartons pirates, and two of their 
ships were captured in the Downs ; on which occa- 
sion Andrew Barton received a wound of which he 
died. To James's demand of satisfaction, Henry 
scornfully replied, that the fate of a pirate was be- 
neath the notice of kings, and the matter might be 
settled by commissioners on the borders. When 
Henry joined in the league against Louis, the latter 
sought earnestly to gain the Scottish king, to whom 
he sent many large sums of money ; while his queen, 
Anne of Briitany, named James her knight, and sent 
him a ring from her own finger. The English envoys, 
on the other hand, required him to remain neutral. 
Much diplomatic finesse, seasoned with the usual pro- 
portion of falsehood and insincerity, was employed 
on all sides ; but, when James found that the English 
had actually invaded France, he summoned his vas- 
sals to meet them at the Burrow Moor, and sent his 
fleet, with a force of three thousand men, to the aid of 
Louis. At the head of a numerous army, the King of 
Scotland then, on the 22d of August, crossed the 
Tweed, near its confluence with the Till ; and, turning 
northward, laid siege to the Castle of Norham, which 
held out for six days against him. It then surren- 
dered ; and its example was followed by the castles of 
Wark, Etall, and Ford. The Scots crossed the Till, 
and on the 6th of September encamped on the hill of 
Flodden, the last of the Cheviot range, bordering on 
the dale of the Tweed. 

The Earl of Surrey, to whom Henry had committed 
the Scottish war, was at Pontefract when James 
crossed the Tweed. He had summoned the gentry 
of the north to meet him at Newcastle ; and, when 
they repaired to his standard, his forces amounted to 
twenty-six thousand men. He then advanced at their 
head to Wooler-haugh, within five miles of the enemy. 
When he saw their position, fortified by nature on all 



1513.] WAR WITH SCOTLAND. 155 

sides but one, and that defended by cannon, he feared 
to attack ; and, sending a herald to James, required 
him to descend into the plain, and engage on equal 
terms. The monarch refused. Surrey then, by the 
advice of his son, the lord-admiral, resolved to march 
towards Scotland, and then return, and take the ene- 
my ill the rear. The English therefore crossed the 
Till in two divisions, a van and rearguard, the for- 
mer led by the admiral, the latter by Surrey in per- 
son ; and they marched till evening up its right bank. 
At sunrise the next morning, they crossed the river 
by the bridge of Twissel, and, going down the left 
bank, approached the Scottish camp. James, who 
now saw their object, ordered his men to fire their 
huts and retire to the hill of Brankston, more to the 
north. The smoke filled the entire valley ; and, when 
it cleared away, the vanguard of the English found 
themselves at the foot of the hill, on which the Scots 
were posted in five solid masses. They halted till the 
rearguard came up, and both then advanced in one 
line, while the Scots began to descend in good order 
and in perfect silence. 

The right wing of the EngUsh vanguard was assail- 
ed by a body of Scottish spearmen under the Lord 
Home. It gave way ; and its leader, Lord Edmund 
Howard, was unhorsed, and lay on the ground expect- 
ing to be slain or taken, when the bastard Heron 
came with a body of outlaws and restored the battle ; 
and the Lord Dacre, with a reserve of fifteen hundred 
men, took the Scots in the rear and put them to flight. 
A body of seven thousand Scots, under the earls of 
Hvmtley, Errol, and Crawford, was in the mean time 
hotly engaged with the remainder of the Enghsh van- 
guard ; till, after an obstinate and bloody conflict, Er- 
rol and Crawford fell, and their men broke and fled. 
The king in person, followed by a numerous body of 
gallant warriors cased in armour, assailed the rear- 
guard ; and, bearing down all resistance, had nearly 
reached the royal standard, when Sir Edward Stanley, 
who had defeated and chased over the hill the earls of 
Lennox and Argyle who were opposed to him, return- 



156 HENRY VIII. [1514. 

ed and took the body led by the king in the rear. 
James was slain by an unknown hand, within a 
spear's length of Surrey. The battle, which began 
after four in the evening, lasted but an hour. The ap- 
proach of night and the want of cavalry caused the 
pursuit not to exceed four miles. The loss of the 
Scots was ten thousand men, among whom were their 
king, his natural son the Archbishop of St. Andrews, 
two bishops, two abbots, twelve earls, thirteen barons, 
and fifty gentlemen of distinction. The body of the 
Scottish king was conveyed to London, to be there in- 
terred. To reward the victors, Surrey was created 
Duke of Norfolk ; his son, Earl of Surrey ; Brandon, 
Lord Lisle, duke of Suifolk ; Lord Herbert, Earl of 
Somerset ; and Sir Edward Stanley, Lord Mounteagle. 

When the Scots had recovered a little from the 
consternation caused by this calamitous defeat, they 
proceeded to regulate the affairs of the realm. The 
queen was allowed to retain the regency, as guardian 
to her infant son James V. ; but when, shortly after 
the birth of her second son, who was born after her 
husband's death, she gave her hand to the Earl of An- 
gus, a young nobleman who had little but his personal 
beauty to recommend him, the regency was transfer- 
red to the Duke of Albany. A deputation was sent to 
France, where he resided, to invite him over ; and, 
though Henry obtained from the French government 
a solemn promise that he should not be permitted to 
depart, he made his way to Scotland in 1515, and as- 
sutned the royal authority. When he learned that 
Henry was tampering with the queen to bring her 
children to England, he besieged her in the Castle of 
Stirhng, and forced her to surrender the two princes. 

To return to Continental affairs. While Henry, 
during the winter, was making every preparation for 
renewing the war with vigour in the spring, Louis 
was no less strenuous in his exertions to procure a 
general peace. The pontiff Leo X., a lover of pleas- 
ure rather than of war, was easily propitiated ; the 
permission to retain Navarre rapidly infused pacific 
notions into the mind of Ferdinand ; and even Max- 



1515.1 CONTINENTAL AFFAIRS. 157 

imilian listened readily to a proposal for the marriage 
of a daughter of Louis, with Milan for her portion, to 
liis grandson Charles, thougli this prince was already 
engaged to the Princess Mary, sister of the King of 
England. Louis lost no time in making Henry aware 
of this arrangement, which at first he could hardly 
cref'it. When, however, he could no longer doubt it, 
he began to lend an ear to proposals for peace ; and 
Louis's queen happening to die at this time, he offered 
his hand to Henry's sister Mary. Though Louis was 
then fifty- three years old, and the princess but sixteen, 
and her affections, moreover, were engaged to the ac- 
complished Duke of Suffolk, she was induced to give 
her consent. The marriage was celebrated by proxy 
at Greenwich and at Paris. The young queen was 
then conducted to Abbeville by the Duke of Norfolk, 
where Louis met her, and the ceremony was renewed 
in the cathedral on the 9th of October. The next 
day, to the grief and surprise of the bride, all the Eng- 
lish attendants, except Norfolk's niece Anne Boleyn, 
a child but seven years old, and two others, w^ere or- 
dered home. Louis then conducted her to St. Denis, 
where she was crowned ; but, on the 1st of January, 
1515, he died, and in less than three months the bride 
became a widow. 

Louis was succeeded by Francis, count of Angou- 
leme, the next male heir. The new monarch was 
naturally anxious that Mary should not espouse the 
Archduke Charles. As Suffolk was at the head of the 
embassy sent by Henry to convey her back to Eng- 
land, Francis, who knew of his love, urged him to 
seek her hand at once ; and Mary herself gave him a 
challenge, by asking him if he had now the courage to 
marry her at once, fixing the day by which he must 
resolve to marry her or lose her for ever. Suffolk ac- 
cepted the challenge, and they were privately mar- 
ried in the month of March. Francis communicated 
the affair to Henry, interceding for the lovers ; and 
Mary wrote, taking the whole blame on herself. Hen- 
ry was, or affected to be, extremely angry, but at 
length relented and forgave them. Perhaps he was 

Vol. II.— 



158 HENRY VIII. [1515. 

aware of the whole from the very commencement, as 
Suffolk had written to the favourite Wolsey in order 
to sound the king's disposition.* Indeed, from his 
fixing on Suff"olk to convey his sister to England, and 
from the whole progress of the affair, it is not un- 
likely that Henry, who was far from being devoid of 
generosity, may have secretly wished to promote the 
union of the lovers, whom he ever after treated with 
the greatest affection. 

It was about this time that the great power and in- 
fluence of Wolsey attained their height ; and, during 
fifteen years, he' ruled the kingdom with a power 
nearly dictatorial. We will therefore sketch his his- 
tory and character. 

Thomas Wolsey, the son, as it was said, of a 
butcher at Ipswich, having received a learned educa- 
tion, entered the church. He became tutor in the 
family of the Marquis of Dorset, who, pleased with 
his talents, recommended him to Henry VII., by whom 
he was made one of the royal chaplains. The king 
employed him in a secret negotiation respecting his 
marriage with Margaret of Savoy ; and was so pleased 
with his conduct in it, that he bestowed on him the 
deanery of Lincoln. f Soon after the accession of 
Henry VIII., Wolsey was made almoner,| a situation 
which brought him into constant intercourse with the 
king ; and the pohsh and gayety of the new almoner's 
manners, and the readiness with which, though in 
orders, and nearly forty years of age, he entered into 
the royal pleasures (even, it is said, singing, dancing, 
and carousing with the youthful courtiers), quickly 
won him the heart of Henry, who Avas also aware of 
his talents for business, and delighted with his skill in 

■* On a subsequent occasion, Wolsey told Suffolk that, if it had 
not been for him., he would have lost his head. 

f Wolsey used such extraordinary despatch, and was so fa- 
voured by circumstances, that, quitting the king at Richmond at 
noon, he went to Brussels, arranged all matters with the em- 
peror, and was back at Richmond by the night of the third day. 
(Cavendish's Life of Wolsey, p. 10-14.) 

X An officer in the king's household, whose duty it was to dis- 
tribute the royal charities or alms. — Am. Ed. 



1515-1519.] CARDINAL WOLSEY. 159 

the theology of the schools. Preferments rapidly- 
flowed in upon him. On the taking of Tournai he 
was made bishop of that see ; he then became Dean of 
York, next Bishop of Lincoln, and finally Archbishop 
of York, within the one year, 1514. He was now 
courted by foreign princes : even the pope, to secure 
his influence, sent him a cardinal's hat in 1515 ; and 
the same year, on the resignation of Archbishop War- 
ham, the king conferred on him the office of chan- 
cellor. The pontiff" finally, in 1518, invested him with 
the dignity of papal legate, and his ambitious mind 
now aspired even to the papacy itself. 

The wealth of Wolsey was enormous. Besides his 
archbishopric, he farmed the revenues of the sees of 
Hereford and Worcester, which were held by foreign- 
ers ; and held in coynmendam* the abbey of St. Alban's 
and the see of Bath, which he afterward exchanged 
for that of Durham, and this again for the more 
wealthy see of Winchester. His legatine court and 
the chancery brought him in large emoluments ; and 
he had pensions from the pope, the emperor, and the 
King of France. Bound to celibacy by his order, and 
profuse and vain by nature, he hoarded not his 
wealth, but lived in a style of princely magnificence, 
and barons and knights were among the officers of 
his household. Palaces, abbeys, and colleges rose or 
were enlarged by his munificence, and the learned 
men of all countries tasted of his bounty. At the 
same time, in his office of chancellor he was just and 
upright, and his improvements in the administration 
of justice entitled him to the gratitude of the people. 

England was now in tranquillity, both externally 
and internally. The King of France had recovered 
the Milanese ; and on the death of the Emperor Max- 
imilian, in 1519, he and Henry, and the late emperor's 
grandson Charles, who had already succeeded his 
maternal grandsire Ferdinand in his dominion over 
Spain, Naples, and the New W^orld, becam.e candi- 
dates for the vacant dignity. The contest in reality 

* In trust. 



160 HENRY VIII. [1520. 

lay between Francis and Charles ; and the decision 
of the electors in favour of the latter, laid the founda- 
tion of a lasting enmity between the two monarchs. 
Each was solicitous to gain to his side the King of 
England and his powerful favourite. Francis, in re- 
liance on his own address and powers of persuasion, 
eagerly desired a personal interview. He therefore, 
in 1520, summoned Henry to perform an article in the 
last treaty between them, by which it wa^ stipulated 
that they should meet in person on the borders of 
their dominions. Henry, acting under the influence 
of the Spanish cabinet, sought to evade compliance ; 
but Francis was too adroit for him ; and the arrange- 
ments being committed by both monarchs to Wolsey, 
he appointed an interview to take place on the last 
day of May, between Ardres and Guisnes, within the 
English territory ; when it was arranged that a tour- 
nament should be held, in which the kings of France 
and England, each with eighteen companions, should 
answer all opponents at tilt, tourney, and barriers. 

Henry and his court set out for Calais on the 21st 
of May. On reaching Canterbury, he learned that 
the emperor, with a squadron of ships, had cast anchor 
at Hythe ; for Charles, in consequence (as he pretend- 
ed) of most urgent affairs, being on his way from 
Spain to the Netherlands, and hearing, as he came up 
the channel, that the Enghsh court was so near the 
coast, could not, he said, omit the opportunity of pay- 
ing his respects to his uncle and aunt. He came to 
court and remained for four days, during which short 
time he completely gained the affections of Henry ; 
and he also secured the interest of Wolsey, by assu- 
rances of the papacy on the next vacancy. On the 
very day of his departure, the 31st, the king and court 
of England passed over to Calais. 

A temporary palace of framework, which had been 
sent out from England, had been erected near the cas- 
tle of Guisnes. It contained a stately chapel and nu- 
merous apartments, whose walls were hung with tap- 
estry and the ceilings covered with silk. A similar 
edifice had been erected for Francis near the town of 



1520.] FIELD OF THE CLOTH OF GOLD. 161 

Ardres. When the two monarchs had arrived at 
their respective pavilions, Wolsey visited Francis; 
and an additional treaty for the marriage of the dau- 
phin with Henry's only child Mary was concluded, 
Francis binding the crown of France to the payment 
of one hundred thousand crowns a year to that of 
England, in case of their issue being seated on the 
English throne. When this arrangement had been 
completed, the two monarchs, on the 7th of June, 
rode to the vale of Andern, within the territory of 
Guisnes ; and, while their attendants halted on the 
opposite eminences, they passed down into the valley, 
met and embraced, and then walked arm in arm into 
a pavilion which had been prepared for their recep- 
tion, where they held a secret conference on the late 
treaty. 

Serious business being now at an end, the martial 
exercises began. During six days, the kings tilted 
with spears against all comers ; the tourney with the 
broadsword on horseback occupied two more ; and, 
on the concluding day, they fought on foot at barriers. 
The queens and their ladies looked on from their gal- 
leries and awarded the prizes ; and, whether it were 
owing to their own superior skill and prowess, or to 
the flattering courtesy of their opponents, the mon- 
archs were invariably the winners. The heralds duly 
registered the names, arms, and feats of the knights. 
The French and English nobles, like their sovereigns, 
vied with each other in the display of magnificence 
on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, as the place of 
meeting was rom.antically styled ; and debts were in- 
curred which the frugality of a whole life proved in 
many cases insufficient to clear off.* 

Yet, amid all the gayety and courtesy of the tour- 
nament, mutual distrust still prevailed. The number 
of guards and attendants on both sides was duly 
counted ; when the kings would visit their respective 
queens, each set forth at the signal of the discharge 

* " Many," says Bellay, " carried on their shoulders their mills, 
their forests, and their meadows." 
02 



162 HENRY VIII. [1521. 

of a culverin ; they passed each other at the middle 
spot ; and, at the moment Henry entered the French, 
Francis entered the Enghsh territory. At length 
Francis, open and generous by nature, grew disgusted 
with these precautions ; and, mounting his horse, he 
rode one morning with but three attendants to Guis- 
nes, and, entering the chamber where Henry was in 
bed, told him he was his prisoner. Henry rose and 
embraced him; and Francis, saying he should have 
no valet but himself, aided him to dress. Next day 
Henry returned the comphment ; yet, still dubious of 
treachery, he always disguised himself and his at- 
tendants on his return from Ardres. On the last day, 
June 24th, when Francis was on his return from 
taking leave of Queen Catharine, he met a body of 
maskers. Henry, who was one of them, discovered 
himself, and flung a collar of pearls, worth 15,000 
angels ($36,000), round the neck of Francis, who, in 
return, presented him with a costly bracelet. They 
then embraced, and bade each other farewell. 

Thus ended this memorable but useless interview. 
Useless, since Henry forthwith visited the emperor at 
Gravelines ; and any impression made by the more 
generous Francis was quickly effaced by the arts of 
his young but calcLilating rival, who made Wolsey 
more than ever his own by renewed assurances of the 
papacy, and by giving him immediate possession of 
the revenues of three Spanish bishoprics. Charles, 
having conducted his uncle back to Calais, and spent 
three days with him there, returned to his own do- 
minions. 

The following year, 1521, an event occurred in Eng- 
land which cast the first serious stain on the hitherto 
comparatively blameless administration of Henry. 
Thomas Stafford, duke of Buckingham, son of him 
who was put to death by Richard III., was one of 
the wealthiest subjects in England, and was, moreover, 
of the blood royal, and held the distinguished office 
of lord-high-constable. It is said that he incurred the 
enmity of Wolsey by complaining of the great expense 
caused by the interview at Guisnes, and by laying tha 



1521.] EXECUTION OF BUCKINGHAM. 163 

blame on the cardinal. He had certainly, however, 
independent of this, excited the kmg's suspicions and 
jealousy by his imprudence, 

Buckingham, possessed with the usual folly of de- 
siring to pry into futurity, had formed an intimacy 
with one Hopkins, a Carthusian friar, who pretended 
to the gift of prophecy ; and the lucky guesses of this 
man on one or two occasions had confirmed the duke's 
belief in his divining skill. Hopkins at times darkjy 
intimated that Henry would leave no issue, and that 
great things were portended for Buckingham's son. 
What the effect of these hints may have been on the 
mind of the duke, cannot positively be said ; but he 
augmented his household, and Sir William Bulmer, 
■among others, quitted the king's service to enter into 
his. For this offence, Bulmer was brought before the 
Star Chamber just before the king went to France ; 
-and Henry, on pardoning him, used very enigmatical 
language respecting Buckingham. Some time after, 
the duke discharged a relation of his own, named 
Knevett, whom he had made his steward ; and this 
man, out of revenge, went to Wolsey and revealed all 
he knew, with additions, as usual, of the projects of 
Buckingham. The duke was summoned to court 
from his seat in Gloucestershire. On his way, he ob- 
served that he was closely followed by three knights; 
at Windsor he met with insult ; at York Place the 
cardinal refused to see him ; and, as he proceeded 
down the river in his barge to Greenwich, he was ar- 
rested, and conveyed to the Tower. He was soon 
after arraigned for high treason before the Duke of 
Norfolk, lord-high-steward, and a jury of twenty-one 
peers. Knevett, Hopkins, and his confessor and 
chancellor, were examined as witnesses against him. 
He defended himself with eloquence and spirit ; but, 
though the charges preferred against him did not 
amount to an overt act of treason, he was found 
guilty. The Duke of Norfolk, with tears, pronounced 
his sentence ; while he replied with dignity, declaring 
his forgiveness of his enemies, and his resolution not 
-to sue for mercy. He suffered on Tower Hill on the 



164 HENRY VIII. [1522. 

17th of May, amid the lamentations of the people, 
who vented their rage on Wolsey, the supposed au- 
thor of his death, by crying out " The butcher's son !" 

Meanwhile the war had been renewed between 
Charles and Francis. Both parties, however, accept- 
ed the mediation of the King of England ; and Wol- 
sey, being appointed arbitrator, repaired to Calais to 
endeavour to effect a peace. His commission, how- 
ever, ended, as perhaps it was intended to do, in a 
league between the pope, the emperor, and the King 
of England against France. Henry's daughter, the 
Princess Mary, was engaged to the emperor, and the 
allies were simultaneously to invade France the fol- 
lowing spring. The vacancy of the papal throne, by 
the sudden death of Leo, on the 1st of December, now 
raised Wolsey's hopes to their height. His own sov- 
ereign favoured his aspirations ; the emperor was 
bound to him by obligations and promises ; and he 
possessed in abundance that which was omnipotent 
at Rome, money : still the duplicity of the emperor, 
the jealousy of the French cardinals, or the arts of 
the Cardinal Julio de' Medici, foiled all his projects ; 
and the choice of the sacred college fell upon Adrian 
of Utrecht, the emperor's tutor. As, however, the 
new pontiff was advanced in years, Wolsey readily 
listened to the excuses and the renewed promises of 
Charles, who, on his way back to Spain, landed at 
Dover on the 25th of May, 1522, and passed five 
weeks at the Enghsh court. 

As the invasion of France had been arranged at this 
interview, the Earl of Surrey passed over in the au- 
tumn to Calais, with twelve thousand men of paid 
troops, and four thousand volunteers ; and, being join- 
ed by one thousand German and Spanish horse, made 
an inroad into the French territory on the 31st of Au- 
gust. He wasted and plundered the country as far as 
Amiens ; but as the French would, as usual, give no 
opportunity of fighting, and a dysentery broke out 
among his troops, he was obliged to lead them back 
to Calais on the 16tli of October. The Scottish re- 
gent, in the mean time, at the impulse of Francis, as 



1523-1525.] woLSEY disappointed. 165 

the truce was expired, assembled an army of eighty- 
thousand men for the invasion of England ; but, de- 
ceived and terrified by the vaunts of Lord Dacre, ward- 
en of the western marches, who menaced him with an 
army which actually did not exist, he disbanded his 
forces. The following year, 1523, Surrey entered 
Scotland, and burned the town of Jedburgh; while 
the regent assembled a force of sixty thousand men 
on the Burrow Moor, and soon after, on the 1st of 
November, formed the siege of Wark. Surrey, whose 
forces had been increased from nine to fifty thousand, 
advanced to give him battle ; but the Scottish army 
decamped at midnight, and recrossed the borders. Al- 
bany soon after left Scotland, never to return. The 
scandalous familiarity of Queen Margaret with the 
son of Lord Evandale alienated her friends ; and her 
husband, the Earl of Angus, assumed the regency un- 
der the protection of Henry ; and, for eighteen years, 
tranquillity prevailed on the borders. 

Again Wolsey was doomed to meet with disappoint- 
ment in his suit for the papacy. On the death of 
Adrian, on the 14th of September, Henry called on 
Charles to perform his engagements to the cardinal ; 
the English minister at Rome was directed to spare 
neither money nor promises ; some members of the 
sacred college even were gained ; but the same causes 
operated against him as before ; and, by one of the 
manoeuvres famiUar to the conclave, the election fell 
on Julio de' Medici, the nephew of Leo X., who took the 
name of Clement VH. Wolsey was at length fully 
convinced of the insincerity of the emperor, for the 
papal throne was now occupied by a man much young- 
er than himself. Dismissing, therefore, all his dreams 
of ambition, he began to think of the true interests of 
England ; secret negotiations were entered into with 
the King of France ; and when the defeat at Pavia, in 
1525, had placed that monarch a captive in the hands 
of the emperor, Henry hastened to conclude an alli- 
ance, offensive and defensive, between the crowns of 
France and England. The following year the match 
between the emperor and the Princess of Wales was 



166 STATE OF EUROPE. 

broken off; and a marriage between her and Francis 
himself or his son, the Duke of Orleans, was propo- 
sed. His domestic affairs, however, now began to 
occupy the attention of Henry; and, as they were 
productive of most important results, Ave must devote 
ourselves for some time to them exclusively. 

It is perhaps at this point that modern history prop- 
erly commences. The different European states had 
now assumed their permanent form, in which they 
were to enter into more intimate relations of war and 
peace than under the loose and unsteady pohtical 
combinations of the middle ages. It was also at this 
time that the great religious schism commenced, 
which, for the space of more than a century, was to 
give a religious character to wars which fanaticism, 
ambition, and policy combined to kindle. 

In France, the various great fiefs, such as Burgundy 
and Brittany, had been in sundry ways reunited to the 
crown ; and the French monarch ruled Avith absolute 
dominion from the British Channel to the Mediterra- 
nean and the Pyrenees. The Spanish peninsula (with 
the exception of Portugal) now also obeyed one head : 
for the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabel had united 
the crowns of Aragon and Castile, and their arms 
had reduced the Moorish kingdom of Grenada in the 
south, and the small, independent state of Navarre in 
the north of the peninsula. Ferdinand had also ac- 
quired the kingdom of Naples in Italy. The conquest 
of the empires of Mexico and Peru in the New World, 
and the mines of the precious metals there discover- 
ed, had greatly augmented the power of Spain. Its 
present monarch was also sovereign of the wealthy 
and industrious provinces of the Netherlands in riglit 
of his father ; and the votes of the German electors 
had placed him at the head of the empire. No mon- 
arch since Charlemagne had ruled over such exten- 
sive dominions. 

England, the next state in importance, had not yet 
attained her full measure of strength. Though secu- 
red against sudden invasion by her insular position, 



STATE OF EUROPE. 167 

she had in Scotland a domestic foe always influenced 
by France ; and her dominion over the turbulent natives 
of Ireland, and her little less turbulent colonists in that 
island, was scarcely more than nominal. 

The states of Italy, under the rule of their petty ty- 
rants, had sunk into insignificance. Naples had been 
conquered by Spain, and Venice had already began to 
decline, in consequence of the new route to the East 
Indies discovered by the Portuguese, and the conse- 
quent diversion to the port of Lisbon of the greater 
part of the lucrative traffic of which Venice had long 
enjoyed a monopoly. At this time, also, the Ottoman 
empire, by the conquest of Syria and Egypt, had near- 
ly acquired its greatest extent. The northern king- 
doms and Poland did not yet enter into the European 
system, and Russia remained apart in Asiatic bar- 
barism. 

The press, that mighty power for good or for evil, 
was now in active operation. Towards the middle of 
the last century the art of printing was discovered in 
Germany ; many of the classics of Greece and Rome 
had, by means of it, been made accessible to greater 
numbers of readers, and it furnished men with a more 
ready mode of communicating their ideas. While 
classical literature flourished in Italy, theology was 
more cultivated north of the Alps ; and the Reforma- 
tion, which had long been in progress, at length broke 
forth with resistless force ; and a considerable portion 
of Europe, hitherto in vassalage to Rome, flung off" its 
mental chains, and rushed into the enjoyment of spir- 
itual liberty. That all was pure, noble, and blameless 
in this great revolution, no man will assert who knows 
what human nature is ; but, in great political and re- 
ligious changes, all that should rationally be expected 
is, that the good attained should outweigh the evil 
necessarily introduced in its train ; and that the new 
condition of things should tend more to the produc- 
tion of social happiness than that which had preceded 
it. The Reformation, tried by this equitable standard, 
will, we venture to assert, be found to have been em- 
inently conducive to the melioration and social ad- 



168 HENRY VIII. 

vancement of the human race ; and is, therefore, justly 
to be numbered among the most important and glori- 
ous events which history records. 



CHAPTER III. 

HENRY VIII. (continued).^ 

1527-1535. 

The Reformation. — Luther. — Henry writes against him.— Origin 
of Henry's Divorce.— Anne Boleyn — Progress of the Divorce. 
— Cranmer.— Fall of Wolsey ; his Death.— Opinions of Univer- 
sities. — Cromwell.— Cranmer made Primate.— Henry marries 
Anne Boleyn. — The Holy Maid of Kent. — Execution of Bishop 
Fisher ; of Sir T. More ; his Character. 

The Reformation marks one of the most important 
eras in the history of mankind ; and, as it speedily ex- 
tended to England, and there produced its best fruits, 
we will here give a sketch of its commencement, and 
a slight account of tlie early life of the man who was 
the great agent in emancipating the human mind. 

Among the mighty plans of Pope Julius II. was one 
for erecting at Rome a magnificent temple in honour 
of the apostle from whom the popes assume to derive 
their authority. When Leo X., of the tasteful family 
of the Medici, ascended the papal throne, in the thirty- 
seventh year of his age, his ambition incited him to 
continue and complete this noble edifice. But his 
generosity and extravagance had nearly drained the 
papal treasury ; and, without any scruple, he had re- 
course to the old practice of sehing indulgences. The 
Archbishop of Mentz was the person selected for man- 
aging this shameful traffic in Germany ; and this pre- 
late chose, as his principal agent, a Dominican friar 
named Tetzel, who filled the office of inquisitor. Tetz- 

* Authorities : Polydore Virgil, Herbert, Godwin, Halle, and the 
other chroniclers, Burnet, Strype, &c. See Appendix (F). 



LUTHER. 169 

el, who had been already similarly employed, selected 
suitable assistants from among the brethren of his own 
order ; and soon, from press and pulpit, streamed forth 
torrents of declamation on the pains of purgatory, and 
the sovereign power of indulgences for the remission 
of sins, past, present, and to come, however deep 
might be their dye.* The simple Germans gladly 
purchased the remission of their own sins, and those 
of their deceased kindred, then languishing, as they 
were taught to believe, in purgatory. The per-cent- 
age allowed to Tetzel and his brethren was therefore 
very considerable. His ill fortune, however, at length 
led him to the neighbourhood of the newly-founded 
University of Wittemberg in Saxony ; and here Prov- 
idence had prepared an overthrow, not merely for in- 
dulgences, but for the whole system with which they 
were connected. 

The professor of theology at this time at Wittem- 
berg was Dr. Martin Luther. This extraordinary man 
was born at Eisleben, in the province of Mansfeldt, in 
the year 1483. His father, who was engaged in the 
mines of that country, gave him a good education, in- 
tending him for the study of the civil law. He had 
made some progress in this science, when an accident 
changed the whole current of his thoughts and of his 
future life. As he was walking alone one day in the 
fields, there came on a dreadful storm of lightning and 
thunder, and, in his terror, he flung himself on the 
ground, and made a vow to enter a monastery if he 
escaped. t This vow he firmly kept, notwithstanding 
the grief and entreaties of his parents ; and became an 
Augustinian friar in the year 1505. Two years after, 
he found by chance, in the library of his convent, a 
Latin Bible ;| and thus, to his surprise, discovered that 

* This shameless and blasphemous impostor promised to all 
such as purchased his indulgences, " that the gates of hell should 
be closed, and the gates of paradise and bliss should be open to 
them."— Jim. Ed. 

t Other accounts state that Luther had a companion on this 
occasion, who was struck dead at his side by the lightning.— 
Am. Ed. 

t Milner states that Luther had been two years in his convent 

Vol. n.— P 



170 HENRY VIII. 

there were more Scriptures than those portions con- 
tained in the ordinary books of devotion. About this 
time, too, as he was suffering under distress of con- 
science, he was comforted by an aged brother of his 
order, who showed him, from the creed and a sermon 
of St. Bernard's, that remission of sins was to be had 
by faith alone. He apphed himself diligently to the 
Scriptures and to the writings of St. Augustine, and 
was soon regarded as the most learned man of his or- 
der in Germany. He was ordained in 1507 ; and Fred- 
eric the Wise, the elector of Saxony, by the advice 
of Staupitz, the vicar-general of the Augustine order, 
made him professor of philosophy at Wittemberg. 
Three years after Luther visited Rome on the affairs 
of his convent, and returned with no very favourable 
impressions of the zeal and piety of the Italian clergy. 
After his return, he redoubled his application to the 
study of the Scriptures ; and in 1512, having taken his 
doctor's degree, he expounded the Psalms and the 
Epistle to the Romans. He held the doctrines of 
election and of justification by faith only ; and had 
began to view the scholastic theology with indiffer- 
ence or contempt, on which account he was even then 
suspected of heresy. 

While Luther was thus engaged in the search after, 
and the communication of, truth, Tetzel came into his 
neighbourhood. Some of those who made their con- 
fessions to Luther acknowledged sins of no common 
magnitude, and for which they pressingly demanded 
absolution. Luther refused, alleging that sincere con- 
trition and heavy penance must precede. They then 
produced the indulgences which they had purchas- 
ed from Tetzel. He bade them beware how they 
trusted to such things, and still denied them absolu- 
tion. In this emergency they complained to Tetzel, 
who pronounced Luther a heretic, against whom, in 
virtue of his office of inquisitor, he was bound to pro- 

before he discovered that there was a Bible in it ; than which no> 
thing could more strikingly show how little of the religion of ths 
times was derived directly from the word of God, — Am. Ed. 



LUTHER. 171 

ceed. Luther now set himself to examine the author- 
ity for the power of granting indulgences ; and, finding 
none, he began to preach openly against them.* Thus 
the warfare between him and the papacy began : but 
its progress, and its great and happy results, fall not 
properly within the hmits of this history. 

In England the doctrines of Wickliffe, in spite of the 
eiforts of the clergy and the terrors of the stake, had 
secretly spread to a great extent. The books of the 
Saxon reformer, whose tenets were so nearly akin to 
his, were speedily translated and eagerly purchased. 
The bishops, however, exerted themselves to suppress 
the reformed practices and opinions. They acted on 
the slightest suspicions ; and it sufficed to bring a man 
to the stake that he had taught his children the creed, 
the Lord's prayer, and the commandments in the vul- 
gar tongue. To damp the spirit of the reformers still 
more, the king himself came forward as the literary 
champion of the church. His course of studies had 
lain much among the schoolmen ; and the writings of 
that extraordinary genius, Thomas Aquinas, named 
the Angelic Doctor, were his chief favourites. As 
Luther, in his " Babylonish Captivity," had violently 
assailed these works, the choler of the royal theolo- 
gian was excited ; and he resolved to enter the hsts 
with the Saxon friar. With the aid of his bishops 
and of the learned Sir Thomas More, he produced, in 
the year 1521, a " Defence of the Seven Sacraments," 
which was respectable both in matter and style. It 
was dedicated to the pope, by whom it was received 

* The common story of Luther's opposition to Tetzel having 
arisen from the disappointed avarice of the Augustinians, and 
their jealousy at the sale of indulgences being given to the Do- 
minicans, is utterly devoid of foundation.! 

t This story was first propagated by John Cochlasus, a violent enemy of 
Liuber, in a work of his, enntled Historia de actis et scriptis Mart. Lutheri, 
published in 1665. For its confutation, see note 18, p. 21, vol. iii., Mo- 
sheim's Ecclesiastical History, Harpers' edition. 

ll has been fully proved by Sleidan, Seckar, and others, that the privi- 
lege of selling indulgences had been almost exclusively granted to the Uo- 
minicans ; and that, for fifty years before the time of Luther, it had been 
bestowed only on a single Augustinian.— .im. Ed. 



172 HENRY VIII. 

with grateful acknowledgments ; and the title of De- 
feofier of the Faith* was bestowed on its royal author. 
Lutlier, however, treated it with little respect ; and as 
Henry, after the usage of the times, had given him 
hard names, he repaid the compliment in kind, and 
with interest. t He afterward, however, wrote an 
ample apology ; but, with uncourtier-like simplicity, 
excused himself on the ground of his having been as- 
sured that the work was not the king's own, but tlie 
production of the Cardinal of York, " that object of 
hatred to both God and man — that pest of the English 
realm." It may easily be supposed that an apology 
like this tended little to mollify the sceptred contro- 
versialist, of whose zealous co-operation the pope and 
clergy now felt quite assured. Yet a deadly enmity 
and a final separation were to take place between the 
papacy and its royal champion ; and the occasion was 
as follows. 

Though Henry VH., in his anxiety to retain the 
Spanish portion and Spanish alliance, had disregard- 
ed the scruples of Warham, and had obtained the pa- 
pal dispensation, he was not at ease in his mind about 
the matter ; and he obliged the prince, when he at- 
tained the age of fourteen years, to make a formal 
protest against the consummation of the marriage ; 

* It is not a little singular, considering the origin of this title, 
that the Protestant sovereigns of England should have retained 
it to the present day. — Arn. Ed. 

t "The faults of Luther," says Schlegel, "were not the fruits 
of a corrupt heart, but of a warm, sanguine, choleric tempera- 
ment, and the effects of his education, and of the tmies in wliich 
he lived. The harsh and passionate terms which he used were 
the controversial language of the age. He answered his opposers, 
even when they were kings and princes, with too great acrunony, 
with passion, and often with personal abuse. He acknowledged 
this as a fault, and commended Melancthon and Brentius, who 
exhibited more mildness in their conversation and writmgs. But 
it was his zeal for the truth which kmdled his passions ; and per- 
haps they were necessary in those times ; perhaps, also, they were 
the consequence of his monastic life, in which he had no occasion 
to learn worldly courtesy. We say not this to justify Luther : ho 
was a man, and he had human weaknesses; but he was clearly 
one of the best men known in that century."— ilm. Ed. 



1527.] ORIGIN OF henry's divorce. 173 

and, when dying, he conjured him, it is said, to break 
it off. Catharine, however, had won the affections of 
young Henry and of the people by her amiable temper 
and her blameless manners ; and he espoused her with 
general approbation. She bore him three sons and 
two daughters : but they all died in infancy except 
the Lady Mary, born in 1515. The queen now fell 
into ill health ; her temper, naturally melancholy, be- 
came peevish ; and, though she retained the king's 
esteem, she lost her hold on his affections. Nature, 
in fact, had destined Catharine for the convent rather 
than the court.* 

Henry, who ardently longed for male issue, now 
gave up all hopes ; and he therefore caused his 
daughter Mary to be proclaimed Princess of Wales in 
1518. The early decease of his offspring, who had 
blossomed but to die, probably led him to reflect on 
the nature of his marriage. He consulted the pages 
of the Angelic Doctor ; and there he found that the 
pope has not the power to dispense with the laws of 
God, among which is to be reckoned, as moral and 
eternal, that in the law of Moses prohibiting marriage 
with a brother's widow ; and the very curse (that of 
childlessness) there denounced seemed to have fall- 
en on him. It is not known when these scruples 
first began to affect Henry ; but, according to his own 
assertion,! he ceased in 1524 to live with the queen. 

In 1527, when a marriage was agreed on between 
the Princess Mary and the King of France or his son, 
the Bishop of Tarbes, the French ambassador, ex- 
pressed some doubts as to her legitimacy. The king 
then mentioned his scruples to his confessor Long- 
land, bishop of Lincoln. It is asserted by many wri- 
ters (and it is perhaps the truth), that Wolsey, who 
hated the queen, because she rebuked him for his ill 

* In the Appendix (G) will be found Sanders's account of her 
devotional exercises. 

t He so said to Gryneus, as the latter tells Bucer in his letter 
of September 10, 1531. See Burnet, i., 75. This may have been 
on account of the queen's infirmities, though Henry said other- 
MTise, for he was not a man of strict veracity. 
P2 



174 HENRY VIII. [1527. 

life, and ardently longed for revenge on the emperor 
for his conduct concerning the papacy, was at the bot- 
tom of the whole proceeding ; and that he first instill- 
ed doubts into the king's mind, and then engaged the 
Bishop of Tarbes to raise objections. Whether he 
were the original author of the scruples or not, the 
cardinal entered warmly into the project of procuring 
a divorce ; thus avenging himself both on the queen 
and the emperor ; while, at the same time, he planned 
a French connexion for his royal master. The per- 
son on whom he fixed was Renee, daughter to the late 
King Louis XII., and he went over himself to France, 
in the summer of the same year, on that project. 
But, while Wolsey was thus pursuing his schemes of 
ambition and revenge, a person of whom he little 
dreamed had acquired an invincible power over the 
heart of the king. 

When the young widow of Louis XII. returned to 
England, the daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn remain- 
ed behind, and was taken into the service of Claude, 
the queen of Francis I. After some years Anne Bo- 
leyn was recalled to England, and became one of the 
attendants of Queen Catharine ; and, as she was beau- 
tiful in person, accomplished in manners, sensible, 
witty, and amiable in conversation, she was soon the 
object of general admiration. Lord Henry Percy, 
the heir of Northumberland, who was then in the fam- 
ily of the cardinal, paid his addresses to her. His 
suit was favourably received ; but the king, it is said, 
had also felt the charms of the fair maid of honour, 
and the cardinal was directed to prevent the match. 
He accordingly reminded Percy of the inferiority of 
Anne's family, but the lover asserted that her line- 
age was equal to his own,* and refused to give her 
up. The cardinal grew angry, and said he would 
send for his father out of the north, who would soon 
make him break it off; and, when the old earl arrived, 

* Her mother was sister to the Duke of Norfolk, and her father 
was son of one of the coheiresses of the Earl of Ormond. 



1527.] ANNE BOLEYN. 175 

used such arguments as convinced his son of the in- 
utility of opposition, and obliged him to espouse the 
Lady Mary Talbot, daughter of the Earl of Shrews- 
bury. Anne was removed for some time from court ;* 
but her exile was not of long continuance ; and, some 
time after, the king revealed his passion to her. She 
fell on her knees, and said that he must be speaking 
only in jest and to prove her, and concluded with these 
words : " Most noble king, I will rather lose my life 
than my virtue, wliich shall be the greatest and the 
best part of the dowry that I shall bring my husband." 
Henry replied that he would still hope. " I under- 
stand not, most mighty king," said Anne, " how you 
should retain any such hope : your wife I cannot be, 
both in respect of my own unworthiness, and also be- 
cause you have a queen already."! Ere long, how- 
ever, she yielded so far, that she agreed to accept 
Henry's hand in case of his obtaining a divorce. 
Such conduct was certainly indelicate, according to 
our present notions ; but her own times do not seem 
to have regarded it in that light. 

Henry was now resolved on obtaining a divorce 
from the court of Rome. This he judged would be a 
matter of Uttle difficulty, as divorces had been granted 
in much less dubious cases ; and, moreover, the pope 
had a good excuse, the bull of Julius II. having been 
procured under false pretences. By orders from the 
king, Archbishop Warham assembled the bishops ; and 
they all, except Fisher of Rochester, signed an instru- 
ment expressing their doubts of the validity of the 
king's marriage. Dr. Knight, one of the royal secre- 
taries, was then despatched to Rome in July, 1527. 
But the pontiff, Clement VII., was at that time shut 
np in the Castle of St. Angelo, a captive to the troops 
of the emperor, who had lately taken and sacked the 
city of Rome. Knight found great difficulty in com- 

* " Whereat she smoked [fumed], for all this while she knew 
Jiothing of the king's intended purpose." (Cavendish, Lil'e of 
Wolsey, i., 67.) 

t Turner, from the Sloane MS., No. 2495. 



176 HENRY VIII. [1528. 

municating with him ; and Clement, a timid, vacilla- 
ting man, trembled at the idea of oifending the em- 
peror.* Henry in the mean time exerted himself for 
the pontiff's release ; and, when Clement at length 
made liis escape to Orvieto, Knight had a personal in- 
terview with him, in which he was profuse in terms 
of gratitude to Henry, but implored for delay, lest he 
should be ruined by the incensed emperor. He gave 
it, however, as his private opinion to Casale, one of 
the English agents, that the best course for Henry 
would be to marry another wife, and then to sue for a 
divorce. But the king and his advisers saw too much 
difficulty in this course ; and it was resolved to send 
Stephen Gardiner, Wolsey's secretary, and Edward 
Fox, the king's almoner, to Italy. On their way, in 
1528, they obtained, as directed, a promise from the 
King of France, to use his influence with the pope. 
They found Clement still at Orvieto on the 22d of 
March. He equivocated as usual ; but, on hearing 
that the French arms had had some success in Naples, 
he took courage, and issued a commission to the car- 
dinals Wolsey and Campeggio, to try the cause in 
England. Nothing could be more pleasing to Henry 
than this ; for he reckoned that both would equally 
stand his friends, as he had some time before given 
to the latter the see of Salisbury and a palace at 
Rome. But Campeggio, acting in concert, as we may 
suppose, with the pope, made all the difficulty and de- 
lay possible ; pleading his legatine commission at 
Rome, and the gout with which he was afflicted. 
Wolsey wrote, urging his departure in the strongest 
terms, and at length he set out. He travelled, how- 
ever, very leisurely, and did not reach England till 
October. He was received by Henry with the utmost 
respect ; but his instructions were to procrastinate. 
He advised the king to live with the queen, and 

* Lord Bolingbroke (Remarks on Hist, of England) justly de- 
scribes Clement as "the least scrupulous man alive ; who would 
have divorced him, or done any other pontifical job for him, if the 
ieague formed to reduce the emperor's power in Italy had sue* 
ceeded.** 



1529.] PROGRESS OF THE DIVORCE. 177 

counselled the queen to retire into a nunnery ; but 
Henry was determined to marry Anne Boleyn, and 
Catharine had too much spirit to surrender her rights. 
All hopes of accommodation being at an end, and 
all his subterfuges having been exhausted, Campeggio 
was obliged to consent to the opening of the legatine 
court. It commenced its sittings on the 31st of May, 
1529, in a hall of the convent of the Black Friars. 
The royal pair took up their abode in the adjoining 
palace of Bridewell, to be at hand. After going 
through the preliminary forms, the legates cited the 
king and queen to appear on the 18th of June. On 
that day Henry appeared by his proctors, but the 
queen in person. She protested against the compe- 
tency of the court, as the cause had been evoked to 
Rome by the pope. This, she said, her nephew was 
exerting himself to effect ; and, with the delay of a 
few days, she pledged herself to prove that it had 
been done. The court was then adjourned to the 
?lst, when both parties appeared in person. On their 
names being called, the king answered " Here ;" but 
the queen rose up, and, going over, knelt down before 
the king, and said that " she was a poor woman and a 
stranger in his dominions, had been his wife for twenty 
years and more, had borne him several children, and 
had ever studied to please him. If she had done any- 
thing amiss, she was willing to be put away with shame. 
Their parents were esteemed very wise princes, and 
no doubt had good and learned counsellors when the 
match was agreed on. She would not, therefore, sub- 
mit to the court, as her lawyers durst not speak freely 
for her, but desired to be excused till she heard from 
Spain." She then rose and left the court, and would 
never again appear. The king publicly bore testimo- 
ny to her virtues, and declared that nothing but the 
uneasiness of his conscience, and the doubts cast by 
foreign powers on the legitimacy of his daughter, 
could have induced him to take a step which thus 
wounded her feelings. At the desire of Wolsey he 
farther declared, that, instead of urging him to this 



178 HENRY VIII. [1529. 

course as was reported, the cardinal had at first op- 
posed his scruples. 

The court sat again on the 25th ; the queen, not 
appearing when summoned, was pronounced contu- 
macious ; and the legates proceeded, on this and other 
days, to hear the evidence on the king's part. The 
proofs given of Arthur's consummation of his mar- 
riage were such as can leave, we apprehend, little 
doubt on any reasonable mind ;* and the king was in 
full expectation of a sentence in his favour,! when 
Campeggio, on the 23d of July, suddenly adjourned 
the court to tlie 1st of October, alleging that the va- 
cation of the consistory at Rome, of which this court, 
he said, was a part, had commenced, and would last 
till that day. The dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, and 
other peers who were present, were greatly enraged 
at this artifice ; and Suffolk, striking the table, cried, 
" By the mass, I see that the old saw is true ; never 
was there legate or cardinal that did any good in 
England." Wolsey rebuked him with firmness for 
his conduct, and reminded him of the obligation 
which he himself had once been under to a cardinal. 
The court then broke up. The king, who was in an 
adjoining room, took the matter with wonderful pa- 
tience, expecting a favourable sentence in October; 
but his hopes were crushed, when, on the 4th of Au- 
gust, a messenger arrived with citations for him and 
the queen to appear, in person or by proxy, at Rome. 
Tiie emperor had by this time, through threats and 
promises, completely gained over the pontiff, from 
v/hose thoughts nothing was now farther than any 
idea of gratifying Henry. 
To Wolsey nothing could have been more calam- 

* See Burnet, i., p. 68. A summary of the depositions will be 
found in Herbert. See also the discourse between Wolsey and 
the queen's almoner, in the Illustrative Documents in Singer's 
edition of Cavendish's Life of Wolsey. With all our respect for 
the piety and virtue of Catharine, we find it impossible to credit 
her a.^sfrtion to the contrary. 

t For Campeggio had brought over and shown him a bull for 
the divorce, in case the consummation of the former marriage, 
should be proved. 



1529.] THOMAS CRANMER. 179 

itous than the turn which things had taken. The 
queen and her friends looked on him as the source 
and origin of all the evil ; Norfolk, Suffolk, and the 
other lay lords had long been envious and jealous of 
him ; and tliey now took occasion to instil doubts and 
suspicions of him into the mind of the king and of 
Anne Boleyn, with the latter of whom he had been 
on terms of great cordiality. For though, when 
Henry first informed him of his intentions with re- 
spect to her, he threw himself on his knees and earn- 
estly endeavoured to turn him from them, when he 
found him inflexible, he entered, in appearance, cor- 
dially into his views. It is, however, likely that 
Anne was informed by her lover of his efforts to pre- 
vent her elevation, and this may have disposed her to 
join with the cardinal's enemies. It was, therefore, 
probably owing to her influence, that when, about the 
end of September, Wolsey accompanied Campeggio 
to Grafton, in Northamptonshire (where the king then 
was staying), on the occasion of that cardinal's au- 
dience of leave previous to his return to Italy, though 
he was received with tolerable civility, there was an 
absence of Henry's former kindness. This was his 
last interview with the king. 

An actor, destined to be of great importance, now 
makes his first appearance on the scene. As the 
king was returning to London, he stopped for a few 
days at Waltham, to take the pleasure of the chase. 
Fox and Gardiner, who were in his train, were there 
entertained by a gentleman named Cressy. Here 
they met an old college acquaintance. Dr. Thomas 
Cranmer, a lecturer in theology at Cambridge, and 
well versed in the Scriptures, the Fathers, and the 
rehgious controversies at this time prevalent. At 
supper, the king's case, the common topic of conver- 
sation, was introduced. Cranmer said that the opin- 
ions of universities, and eminent divines and canonists, 
should be taken, and the matter thus decided. Fox and 
Gardiner were pleased with the idea ; and when, the 
next day, the court returned to Greenwich, and the 
king began to ask them what was now to be done, 



180 HENRY VIII. [1529. 

Fox mentioned this plan, honestly naming the author; 
for which Gardiner afterward reproved him, as they 
might, he said, have taken the credit of it to them- 
selves. The king was struck with it, and asked if 
Cranmer was still at Waltham. They said they had 
left him there. " Marry, then," said he, " I will surely 
speak to him. Let him be sent for out of hand. I 
perceive that this man hath the sow by the right ear. 
If I had but known this device two years ago, it had 
been in my way a great piece of money, and had also 
rid me of much disquietness." Cranmer, who had 
returned to Cambridge, was brought up to London. 
The king was greatly pleased with his modesty and 
learning, opened his mmd to him, and desired him to 
put his sentiments on the case in writing ; for which 
purpose he directed the Lord Rochfort, Anne Boleyn's 
father,* to take him home to his house, and furnish 
him with books and everything else that he required. 
The fall of Wolsey was now at hand. At the open- 
ing of the Michaelmas term, he proceeded to the 
court of chancery with his usual pomp and state. 
Three days after, he was waited on by the dukes of 
Norfolk and Suffolk, with an order to resign the great 
seal, and retire to Esher, in Surrey, where was a 
house belonging to his see of Winchester. He re- 
fused, alleging that he held the -seals by patent. A 
warm altercation ensued ; the two dukes, finding him 
inflexible, rode to Windsor, and next day returned 
with a letter from the king, at the sight of which 
Wolsey submitted. Having caused an inventory to 
be made of his immense quantity of plate, linen, hang- 
ings, furniture, &c., at York Place (afterward named 
White Hall), the whole of which the king required him 
to give up, he entered his barge to proceed towards 
his destination. The river was covered with boats, 
full of people expecting to see him taken to the 
Tower; but, to their disappointment, his barge went 
up the stream. At Putney he landed, and mounted 
his mule to go on to Esher. He was not quite clear 

♦ He had been created Viscount Rochfort in 1525. 



1530.] THOMAS CROMWELL. 181 

of the village, when he was met by Norris, groom of 
the stole,* bearing him a ring and a kind message 
from the king. Abject in adversity as he had been 
insolent and haughty in prosperty,t he threw himself 
from his mule, took off his cap, and knelt in the mire 
to receive the communication. He then proceeded, 
in better spirits, to his place of exile. 

The king now summoned a parliament, for the first 
time for seven years. The House of Lords forthwith 
voted a long and vague charge, in forty-four articles, 
against the fallen favourite ; but, when it was sent 
down to the Commons, Thomas Cromwell, a servant 
of the cardinal, who had procured a seat in parliament 
for the express purpose, defended his patron with such 
fidelity and spirit, as stopped the bill in that house, 
and laid the foundation of his own future favour with 
the king, who knew how to value worth and honesty. J 
Wolsey was also indicted on the statute of provisions, 
for having exercised his legatine authority. Though 
he had obtained the royal license for that purpose, he 
did not venture to plead it ; and a sentence of frcBmu- 
nire^ was passed on him. The king, however, who, it 
would appear, only wished to humble him, hearing 
that he had fallen sick, directed his own physician to 
attend him, and sent him another ring, accompanied 
by kind messages both from himself and Anne Boleyn. 
He farther granted him, on the 12th of February, 1530, 
a full pardon ; allowed him to retain the see of York, 
with a pension of four thousand marks ($12,800) a 
year out of that of Winchester ; made him a present 
of plate and furniture to the value of jCCOOO ($29,000), 

* The principal gentleman of the king's bedchamber.— -Am. Ed. 

t How different from the noble-minded Becket ! The times, 
however, were altered. 

X Cavendish, i., 207. Lingard, however (vi , 160), thinks that 
Cromwell acted under the direction of the king in the whole 
affair. 

i) A sentence decreeing the punishment which he should be 
subjected to for his violation of the above-mentioned statute ; and 
which was, " that he was out of the protection of the law ; that 
his lands, goods, and chattels were forfeited, and that his person 
was at the mercy of the king." — Am. Ed. 

Vol. n.— Q 



182 HENRY VIII. [1530. 

and gave him permission to move to Riclrniond. But 
his enemies would not allow him to remain so near 
the court, and he received orders to go and reside in 
his diocese. He alleged his poverty : money was 
then sent him, and in Passion-week he set forth for 
the north, in melancholy mood. His train consisted 
of one hundred and sixty servants, and seventy-two 
carts laden with provisions and furniture. He stop- 
ped till midsummer at Southwell, a house belonging 
to his see ; then removed to Scroby, another of his 
houses farther north; and finally, about the end of 
September, fixed himself at Cawood, a village within 
a few miles of York. At these places he endeared 
himself to all classes of the people by his affability, 
his charity, and his strict discharge of his religious 
duties. The ceremony of his installation in the ca- 
thedral was fixed for Monday, the 1st of November ; 
but, on the preceding Friday, his former servant, 
Henry Percy, now earl of Northumberland, arrived, 
and arrested him on a charge of high treason. As he 
was departing, the peasantry assembled, crying, " God 
save your grace ! God save your grace ! The foul 
fiend take them that have thus hurried you from us ! 
We pray God that every vengeance may light upon 
them !" He stayed for a fortniglit with the Earl of 
Shrewsbury, at Sheffield Park. Here he was seized 
with a dysentery ; but he resumed his journey, and 
got as far as Leicester, when the abbot of the con- 
vent of that place came forth with his monks to re- 
ceive him. " Father abbot," said the dying cardinal, 
"I am come to leave my bones among you." He 
w^as then conveyed to a chamber, which he never 
left. When he found himself dying, he addressed Sir 
William Kingston, the lieutenant of the Tower, who 
}iad him in charge, praying him to recommend him to 
the king. "He is," said he, "a prince of a most 
royal carriage, and hath a princely heart ; and rather 
than he will miss or want any part of his will, he will 
endanger the one half of his kingdom. I do assure 
you that I have often kneeled before him, sometimes 
three hours together, to persuade him from his will 



1530.] DEATH OF WOLSEY. 18^ 

and appetilCjbiit could not prevail. Had I but served 
God as diligently as I have served the king, He would 
not have given me over in my gray hairs. But this 
is the just reward that I must receive for my indul- 
gent pains and study, not regarding my service to 
God, but only to my prince."* On the 28th of No- 
vember, and shortly after uttering these words, he 
breathed his last. 

On the fall of the cardinal, the Duke of Norfolk, 
Anne's uncle, became the leading person in the cabi- 
net ; Gardiner was made secretary, and Sir Thomas 
More chancellor. As the pope and emperor were to 
meet at Bologna for the coronation of the latter, an 
embassy, headed by Anne's father (lately created Earl 
of Wiltshire), was sent thither to attend to Henry's 
interests ; and Cranmer and other divinesf accompa- 
nied them. Charles, on their introduction to him, 
said to the earl, " Stop, sir ; allow your colleagues to 
speak; you are a party in the cause." The earl re- 
plied with spirit, that he was not there as a father, 
but as his prince's minister ; and that the emperor's 
opposition should not prevent his sovereign from de- 
manding and obtaining justice. From the pope, how- 
ever, no satisfaction could be obtained. Henry finally 
resolved to put Cranmer's plan into execution ; and 
measures were adopted for collecting the opinions of 
universities, theologians, and canonists. 

The king first apphed to his own universities of Ox- 
ford and Cambridge ; and, not without great difficulty 
and able management on the part of Fox and Gardi- 
ner, obtained from them an opinion that his marriage 
was unlawful ; but they would say nothing respecting 
the power of the pope to dispense. The truth is, they 
feared the progress of the new opinions, and wished 
not to weaken the papal authority. Agents were also 

♦ "Had such feelings," says Mackintosh, "pervaded his life, 
instead of shining at the moment of death, his life would have 
been pure, especially if his conception of his duty had been as 
exact as his sense of its obligation vvas strong." — Am. Ed. 

t " Among whom was Thomas Cranmer, a clergyman attached 
to the Boleyn family," says Lingard. The object of this first no- 
tice of Cranmer is evident. 



184 HENRY VIII. [1530. 

employed on the Continent, to procure the opinions of 
the universities there, and of eminent divines and ci- 
vihans ; and the result was highly favourable to the 
views of Henry. Not only the French universities 
(which might be suspected to be under the influence 
of their king), but those of Italy, even Bologna, which 
was in the dominions of the pope, decined in favour of 
the divorce ; and the principal divides and canonists 
did the same, notwithstanding that Henry's agents, it 
is said, gave no money but the usual fees to the canon 
lawyers, while the emperor showered preferments .on 
those who gave sentence against it.* The Jews, 
when consulted, declared the prohibition in Leviticus 
to be universally binding, while the case of exception 
in Deuteronomy was restricted to Judaea. Zuinglius 
and the Swiss reformers likewise pronounced the 
marriage imlawful. The German reformers, in gen- 
eral, took the most rational and moderate view of the 
case. They said that the marriage should not have 
taken place originally ; but that, since it had been con- 
tracted, it should not be dissolved.! It may there- 
fore be said, that the general opinion of Europe was, 
that marriage with a brother's widow was against the 
law of God.J 

The whole question, in eflfect, comes to this : Was 
the law in Leviticus of universal obligation, or merely 
peculiar to the Hebrew nation ; was the exception in 
Deuteronomy coextensive with the former prohibi- 
tion, and had the pope the power of dispensing with 
the divine law ] At the present day the answer would 
be simple : it is now generally agreed, that both the 
prohibition and the exception were for the Israelites 
alone, though the former has very properly been 

* The natural, we might say inevitable, supposition is, that 
bribery was employed on both sides : but the emperc- and pope 
had certainly the means of giving much higher rewards than 
Henry. 

t Agreeably to the maxim of the civil law respecting clandes- 
tine marriages : Quod fieri non debuit factum valet — (That w hich 
should not be done, having been done, it is valid. 

X It is, however, to be observed, that they all went on the sup- 
position of the first marriage having been consummated. 



1530.] OPINIONS OF UNIVERSITIES. 185 

adopted in the codes of Christian nations. We should 
therefore say, with the German reformers, that a man 
in Henry's case would not be justified in putting away 
his wife. But in Henry's time, men had not generally 
arrived at this rational mode of viewing the Mosaic 
law. The prevalent opinion undoubtedly was, that 
such a marriage was incestuous, and should be dis- 
solved. At all events, had Catharine not been aunt 
to the emperor, it seems probable that the holy father, 
who had always been so ready to oblige his royal 
children in these matters, would have granted Henry 
a divorce without hesitation.* 

A memorial, which had been signed by Warliam 
and Wolsey, and by four bishops, twenty-two abbots, 
and several of the temporal nobility, was now trans- 
mitted to Rome, praying his holiness to attend to the 
opinions of so many eminent men, and to decide the 
question ; hinting also that, if he did not, it would be 
decided in England without him. Clement was in the 
utmost extremity : he feared lest England might fol- 
low the example of the north of Germany, and cast off 
her allegiance to the holy see : while, at tlie same 
time, he stood hi awe of the emperor, who steadfastly 
maintained the cause of his aunt, and would only con- 
sent to Henry's espousing Anne by what is termed a 
left-handed marriage, thus reserving all their rights to 
Catharine and her daughter. But Henry spurned at 
this when it was hinted to liim ; and declared he 
would be regularly divorced, and that he would have 
no compromise. 

Thomas Cromwell, who had so honourably distin- 
guished himself by fidelity to his patron Wolsey in his 

* Only a few years before, Louis Xlf. of France had been di- 
vorced, in order to enable liirn to marry Anne of Bretagne. In 
our own day we have seen a similar favour conferred on Napo- 
leon, f 

t In this latter case, however, it should in justice be stated, that the 
pope, at the lime ot grantinsf the divorce here alluded to, was, in fact, a 
prisoner in the hands of the French emperor ; and it may be fairly ques- 
tioned, therefore, whether, under such circumstances, the act of the pou- 
tiff was not, in a degree at least, compulsory.— Jm. Ed. 

Q2 



186 HENRY VIII. [1530. 

fall, was now in the service of the king. He was of 
humble origin, being the son of a fuller, at Putney, 
near London. He had served as a private soldier in 
Italy, and was afterward for some time in a mercan- 
tile house at Venice. On his return to England he 
commenced the study of the law ; and Wolsey, who 
knew so well how to appreciate talent, having had oc- 
casion to notice his abihties, took him into his service. 
In a conversation one day with Reginald Pole, Crom- 
well spoke slightingly of the notions of vice and vir- 
tue held by men who dwelt in academic shades, away 
from the world ; and said that the business of the man 
who would rise was to divine, if possible, the real 
thoughts and wishes of his prince, and gratify them in 
such a manner as to save all appearances. He also 
praised Machiavel, and offered to lend him that wri- 
ter's " Prince." Pole, who was really an upright, vir- 
tuous man, and who cordially detested the principles 
that work appeared to inculcate, and which, he inferred, 
were those on which Cromwell acted, instantly con- 
ceived the worst opinion possible of him ; and that 
opinion has been, of course, propagated by all the wri- 
ters of his communion, while Protestants are per- 
haps too anxious to justify the conduct of so impor- 
tant an agent in the Reformation. Cromwell was, in 
fact, an ambitious man, and little scrupulous about 
means, provided he could gratify the wishes of his 
royal master. 

Cromwell, who had been appointed by Wolsey to 
manage the revenues of the monasteries, which that 
prelate had dissolved with the papal approbation, had 
imbibed no very high notions of the rights and author- 
ity of the holy see. He now boldly advised Henry to 
take to himself the supremacy over the church and 
clergy of England. Henry hstened with approbation. 
As Wolsey had not pleaded the royal permission for 
exercising his legatine authority, the whole of the 
clergy were liable to the penalty of a prcBmunire for 
having submitted to it, and proceedings accordingly 
were instituted against them. Flagrantly unjust as 
this procedure was, they saw no remedy hut that of 



1531-1532.] BURNING AT SMITHFIELD. 187 

purchasing indemnity ; and, when the convocation met 
in 1531, they voted the king £100,000 ($480,000), un- 
der the name of a benevolence, for his services in wri- 
ting against Luther and protecting the church. But 
this peace-offering did not suffice ; and, after some op- 
position, they were obhged to acknowledge him as su- 
preme head of the church of England, " as fa?- as the 
law of Christ will allow y* A formal indemnity was 
then granted to them. The connexion between the 
papacy and the English clergy was thus nearly dis- 
solved ; and in the parUament of the following year, 
1532, a farther blow was given to the influence of the 
court of Rome, by a bill reducing the first-fruits to be 
paid by bishops to five per cent, on the nett hicome of 
the see ; adding that, if the bull of consecration was 
withheld on account of them, the bishop-elect should 
be consecrated by a mandate from the crown, and that 
all interdicts and other censures should be disregard- 
ed. Other measures against the papacy were pro- 
posed ; but the appearance of the plague caused a pro- 
rogation. At this time Sir Thomas More, who was 
sincerely devoted to the church as it then existed, 
seeing Avhither the king and parliament were tending, 
desired, and with some difficulty obtained, permission 
to resign the great seal, which was then given to Sir 
Thomas Audley. 

But, while the clergy were thus made to infringe on 
the claims of their head, they were left full power to 
persecute those who rejected the real presence, and 
appealed in support of their religious views to the 
Scriptures. At this time, Thomas Bilney, a fellow of 
Trinity Hall, Cambridge, Avas burned as a heretic at 
Norwich ; and Richard Bayfield, a Benedictine monk. 
James Bainham, of the Middle Temple, and a trades- 
man named Tewksbury, underwent the same fate at 
Smithfield. 

* This salvo was suggested by Fisher, bishop of Rochester, as 
being the only condition on which he would consent to acknowl- 
edge the king as head of the church ; and as it admitted of a con- 
struction widely different from that intended by the proposer, 
Henry and his ministers appear to liave had no objection to it. 



188 HENRY VIII. [1532." 

For a person of his temper, and in love with one 
whose virtue was invincible, Henry had shown mar- 
vellous patience. But that patience was now nearly- 
exhausted. Hitherto he had treated Catharine with 
all due respect as his queen ; but, wlien she could not 
be induced to withdraw her appeal to Rome, it M^as 
signified to her, on the 14th of July, 1531, that she must 
leave Windsor, where the court then was, and retire 
to one of three abodes which were specified. She re- 
plied, " That to whatever place she might remove, no- 
thing could remove her from being the king's lawful 
wife." She went from one place to another, and 
finally fixed at Ampthill in Bedfordshire. The pope 
wrote to expostulate with Henry for thus putting away 
his queen ; but he received rather a sharp reply. It 
was then proposed to cite Henry again to Rome. On 
hearing of this, the king sent thither, as his excusatory 
Sir Edward Karne, who was accompanied by one 
Edmund Bonner, afterward so notorious. Karne pur- 
chased over some of the leading cardinals ; but still 
the pope equivocated and delayed ; and at length Karne 
told him, that, as the Church of England was an inde- 
pendent church, the matter could be decided without 
any reference to him whatever. Henry himself had 
an interview with the King of France, to confirm their 
friendship and alliance ; and, on the death of that esti- 
mable prelate, Archbishop Warham, he resolved to 
confer tlie see of Canterbury on Cranmer, who had 
now been for some time resident ambassador at the 
imperial court. 

Cranmer had by this time embraced most of tlie re- 
formed doctrines ; he had, moreover, formed a matri- 
monial union with the niece of Osiander, one of the 
German divines. He saw the difilculties which envi- 
roned him, and would most Avillingly have declined the 
proffered honour ; but he had to deal with one who 
would not lightly suffer his will to be disputed. He 
made all the delay he possibly could, and did not reach 
England till the month of November. He tried to turn 
Henry from his purpose, by stating that, if he should 
receive the dignity, it must be from the pope, which 



1533.] CRANMER MADE PRIMATE. 189 

he neither would nor could consent to do, as the king 
was the only governor of the church, in all causes, 
both temporal and spiritual. Henry, unable to over- 
come this objection, took the opinion of some eminent 
civilians upon it ; and they advised that the prelate 
elect should, previously to taking the oath to the pope, 
make a solemn protest, that he did not consider him- 
self thereby bound to do anything contrary to the law 
of God, or his duty as a subject. Cranmer, whose 
modesty and diffidence always led him to receive with 
deference the opinions of those learned in their pro- 
fession, ceased from opposition. The king applied to 
Rome for the pall* and the usual bulls. Clement, 
aware of Cranmer's principles, hesitated at first, but 
finally sent them. The consecration was appointed 
to take place on the 30th of March, 1533, in St. Ste- 
phen's Chapel at Westminster. On that day Cran- 
mer went into the Chapter-house, and, in the presence 
of five most respectable witnesses, made his protest. 
He then proceeded to the chapel, where the bishops of 
Lincoln, Exeter, and St. Asaph stood ready to per- 
form the ceremony. He there again declared that he 
would take the oath only as limited by his protest ; 
and, on receiving the pall, he made this declaration for 
the third time. Cranmer thus attained the highest 
dignity of the English church in the forty- fourth year 
of his age, and within four years of the time when he 
became first known to the king. 

Opinions are divided with regard to the conduct of 
Cranmer on this occasion. We ourselves highly con- 
demn the principle on which he acted, and agree with 
Dr. Lingard, that " oaths cease to offer any security, if 
their meaning may be qualified by previous protesta- 
tions, made without the knowledge of the party who 
is principally interested."! But, at the same time, we 
are fully convinced that Cranmer was satisfied in con- 

* The mantle worn by an archbishop, and which was required 
to be received from Rome for his consecration. — Am. Ed. 

t In 1526, Francis I., before signing the treaty of Madrid, made 
a secret protest against it, and the pope felt no hesitation in free- 
ing him from the oath. 



190 HENRY VIII. [1533 

science of the rectitude of his proceeding; and that 
Clement must have known in his heart that the new 
prelate would not, and could not, take the oath of ca- 
nonical obedience unreservedly. 

The passion of the king would brook no longer de- 
lay. In the autumn of the preceding year he had 
raised Anne Boleyn to the dignity of JMarchioness of 
Pembroke, and he now resolved to advance her to the 
throne. Early on the morning of the 25th of January, 
1533, he was secretly married to her by Dr. Rowland 
Lee, one of his chaplains. 

On Easter-eve Anne appeared as queen ; and, on 
the 8th of May, Cranmer and those appointed to act 
with him repaired to Dunstable, within six miles of 
Ampthill, to hold a court for trying the question of the 
divorce. As Catharine took no notice of the citation, 
she was pronounced contumacious ; the former evi- 
dence was all gone through again ; and, on the 23d of 
May, the marriage between Henry and Catharine was 
pronounced to have been null and void from the com- 
mencement. On Whit-Sunday (June 1st) Anne was 
crowned by the primate. Neither menaces nor prom- 
ises could ever induce Catharine to forego what she 
deemed her rights; and she insisted to the last on 
being treated as queen by all who approached her. 

"When the news of what had been done reached 
Rome, the conclave was higldy incensed ; but the wary 
pontiff would go no farther than to declare Cranmer's 
sentence null, and Henry's second marriage illegal; 
and a threat of excommunication was added if he did 
not replace matters on a former footing. Clement's 
thoughts were now engrossed by a project for marry- 
ing his niece, the famous Catharine de' Medici, to the 
Duke of Orleans, son of the King of France, who was 
on terms of great amity with Henry, and whom he 
was loath to offend. At the interview which took 
place in the following October between the pontiff and 
the French king at ^Iarseilles, when the marriage was 
celebrated, Francis exerted himself to effect an ar- 
rangement between the former and tlie King of Eng- 
land. Clement seemed inclined to gratify Henry, pro- 



1533.] BIRTH OF PRINCESS ELIZABETH. 191 

vided lie returned to his obedience. Bonner, howev- 
er, who was Henry's agent there, when he found that 
he could get no definite answer from the pope, pre- 
sented, on the 7th of November, an appeal to a gener- 
al council, with which he was intrusted. Clement 
was highly indignant, and rejected it as being unlawful. 

On the 7th of September* Henry's new queen gave 
birth to a princess, who was baptized with great pomp 
by the name of Elizabeth, after her paternal grand- 
mother ; the primate, and the duchess-dowager of Nor- 
folk, and the marchioness-dowager of Dorset standing 
sponsors. Soon after she Avas declared Princess of 
Wales, as her sister Mary had been, though she was 
only presumptive heiress to the throne. 

It is melancholy to observe how the sanguinary spirit 
of the Romish church still continued to prevail in Eng- 
land. On the 4th of July in this year, the flames of per- 
secution consumed two more victims. The one was 
John Frith, one of the Cambridge men whom Wolsey 
had removed to his new college at Oxford, and the inti- 
mate friend of Tyndal, who was now engaged in trans- 
lating and printing the Scriptures at Antwei-p. Frith 
denied both transubstantiation and purgatory. He 
had put his sentiments on the former subject in wri- 
ting ; and the paper was treacherously conveyed to 
Sir T. More, who attempted to refute it ; and this drew 
forth a masterly reply from Frith, who was now a 
prisoner in the Tower. On the 20th of June, he was 
brought before Stokesley, bishop of London, who was 
assisted by Gardiner (lately raised to the see of Win- 
chester), and Longland, of Lincoln. He firmly main- 
tained his opinions, whereupon his judge delivered 
him over to the secular powers ; " most earnestly re- 
quiring them, in the bowels of our Lord Jesus, that 
this execution and punishment, worthily to be done on 
him, might be so moderate that the rigour thereof 
should not be extrehie, nor yet the gentleness too 

* That this, and not the 13th, as stated by Cranmer, is the true 
date, is put beyond question by the queen's own letter in the State 
Papers, i., 407, and by the calendars to the Book of Common Pray- 
er in the reign of EUzabeth. 



192 HENRY VIII. [1534. 

much mitigated ; but that it might be to the salvation 
of the soul, to the extirpation, terror, and conversion 
of heretics, and to the unity of the Catholic faith :" the 
true meaning of which blasphemous cant is, that he 
was to be roasted to death with all gentleness and mod- 
eration. Frith suffered with the greatest constancy 
at Smithfield ; and with him was burned a tailor's ap- 
prentice, named Andrew Hewit, who had also denied 
the corporeal presence in the sacrament. 

In the succeeding parliament of 1534, rapid progress 
was made in casting off the yoke of Rome : provis- 
ions, bulls, etc., were abolished ; no money was to be 
sent to Rome ; monasteries were subjected to the king 
alone, and bishops were to be elected on a conge cfelire, 
or permission to elect., from the crown. A law was 
passed to regulate the succession to the throne. In 
this the marriage with Catharine was declared unlaw- 
ful and void, and that with Anne was confirmed ; the 
crown was to descend to the issue of this latter mar- 
riage ; and any person who did anything in derogation 
of the lawfulness of the king's marriage with Queen 
Anne, or to endanger the succession as thus limited, 
was to suffer death as a traitor. 

An oath was enjoined to be taken by all persons to 
maintain this order of succession, under penalty of 
the consequences of misprision of treason. The Bish- 
op of Rochester and Sir T. More were the only per- 
sons of note who refused to take this oath ; but they 
only objected to the preamble, asserting the nullity of 
the king's former marriage, and offered to swear with- 
out reservation to the succession as proposed. They 
were both committed to the Tower. 

Fisher had already been punished for the counte- 
nance he had given to a notorious imposture. There 
was a woman at Aldington in Kent, named Elizabeth 
Barton, who was subject to hysterical fits, in which 
she used to utter much incoherent rhapsody. The 
priest of the parish, one Masters, thought that these 
ravings might be turned to a profitable account. He 
affected to regard them as inspirations of the Holy 
fSpirit ; and, going to Primate Warham, who was at 



1534.] THE HOLY MAID OF KENT. 193 

that time living, he reported the case, and received 
directions from the pious but credulous prelate to 
w^atch her future trances, and give him an account of 
them. Masters gradually induced the poor woman to 
counterfeit these trances, and to utter in them what 
he should direct. His great object was to make an 
image of the Virgin, which stood in a chapel of his 
parish, an object of pilgrimage, and, consequently, of 
emolument to himself. Elizabeth, therefore, was in- 
structed to say, that the Virgin had appeared to her, 
and declared that if she went to the chapel of Court- 
at-Street she would be cured. The news was spread ; 
and on the appointed day more than two thousand 
persons assembled to witness the miracle, which took 
place, they were assured, in due form, and they went 
away quite satisfied of the sanctity of the image. 
Elizabeth was now, in 1526, removed to Canterbury, 
where she took the veil ; and Dr. Bocking, a monk of 
Christ Church, and a confederate of Masters, became 
her future director. 

Others were now received into the confederacy ; the 
visions and revelations of the prophetess became more 
numerous, and one Deering made a book of them, 
which the primate put into the hands of the king. 
He showed it to vSir Thomas More, who pronounced 
it to be silly stuff. No farther notice was taken of 
her till the question of the divorce and separation from 
Rome came to be warmly agitated. She was then 
put forward again. A monk wrote a letter in gold 
characters, which she was to pretend had been given 
her by Mary Magdalen ; and she was also taught to 
assert, that when the king was at Calais in 1532, she 
was invisibly present as he w^as hearing mass, and 
that an angel had brought her the holy wafer from the 
priest. These fictions were merely intended to gain 
for her credit with the people, and then the visions 
of real importance were to be produced. An angel, 
she pretended, now came to her, desiring her to go to 
the infidel king and order him to do three things : to 
leave his rights to the pope, to destroy the folk of the 
iiew opinion, and to keep his lawful wife. She also 

Vol. II.—R 



194 HENRY VIII. [1534. 

declared, that if the king married Anne Boleyn, he 
would not retain the throne more than a month, and 
would die a villain's death. Two agents of the pope 
now countenanced her, and Bishop Fisher was so 
weak as to become one of her secret advisers. More, 
too, had an interview with her, in which he asked her 
to pray for him ; and he expressed his belief that Heav- 
en was working " some good and great things by her." 
Queen Catharine's chaplain, Abel, also communicated 
with the prophetess. It would farther seem that the 
Observant Friars, whom Henry VII. had greatly fa- 
voured, were engaged in the conspiracy. It was in 
their chapel at Sion House that More saw her ; and 
when, in the summer of this year, Henry was at 
Greenwich, Father Peto. of their order, preaching be- 
fore him, likened him and the queen to Ahab and Jez- 
ebel, and bade him beware lest the dogs should lick 
his blood. Henry bore this insolence with patience ; 
and onl}^ directed that Dr. Curwin should preach the 
following Sunday in reply. In his sermon Curwin 
called Peto abundance of foul names : when another 
friar, named Elstow, who was sitting in the rood-loft,* 
burst out into a torrent of invective, and was only si- 
lenced by the voice of the king. The next day the 
two friars were summoned before the council and 
reprimanded. Cromwell told them they deserved to 
be tied in a sack and flung into the Thames. " Threat- 
en such things," said Elstow, with a bitter smile, "to 
rich and dainty folk which are clothed in purple, fare 
delicately, and have their chief hope in the present 
world : we esteem them not, when, for the discharge 
of our duty, we are driven hence. Thank God, we 
know the way to heaven to be as near by water as by 
land ; nor care we, therefore, by which of these two 
roads we travel thither." Who can question the sin- 
cerity of these men 1 

It was deemed advisable to arrest the Holy Maid of 
Kent and her accomplices. By the efforts of Cran- 

* The place where the rood or crucifix was placed ; it was over 
the entrance to the chancel. 



1534.] THE king's supremacy. 195 

mer, Cromwell, and a zealous divine named Hugh 
Latimer, their arts were traced out ; and, when brought 
before the Star Chamber, they made a voluntary con- 
fession. They were then conveyed to Canterbury, 
and there, during sermon-time, exposed on a stage in 
the churchyard and rebuked by the preacher. They 
underwent a similar exposure at St. Paul's Cross in 
London, and were made to read out a confession of 
their imposture. They were then sent to the Tower; 
and as it was found that the Romish party was tam- 
pering with the nun, to get her to deny all she had 
said, they were attainted of treason. The nun. Mas- 
ters, Bocking, and three others, were e.iecuted at Ty- 
burn on the 21st of April. She acknowledged her 
guilt; but justly said that her accomplices, who were 
learned men, were more to blame than she, " a poor 
wench without learning."* As the Observants per- 
sisted in assailing the king's divorce, their order was 
suppressed in the course of the year. 

The king's supremacy was now generally acknowl- 
edged, and the rupture with Rome might be regarded 
as complete. But the regular clergy were highly dis- 
satisfied with the change. The first symptoms of re- 
sistance appeared at the Charter House in London ; 
the inmates of which, persuaded that the admission of 
the papal supremacy was necessary for salvation, had 
sought to instil this belief into the minds of their pen- 
itents. These fanatic monks prepared themselves for 
martyrdom in v/hat they believed to be the cause of 
truth ; the priors of two other houses came and join- 
ed them ; a system of resistance to the government 
was gradually organized ; and, if not checked in time, 
might spread over the whole kingdom. The three 
priors, and three others, were therefore arrested, and 

* A more charitable judgment is pronounced on this unhappy 
female by some other historians. Sir James Mackintosh consid- 
ers her to have been a sincere, though a very weak and credulous 
woman, the unsuspecting dupe of others; and, speaking of her 
punishment, says, " She was executed for misfortunes which ig- 
norance and superstition regarded as crimes ; for the incoherent 
language and dark visions of a disturbed, if not an alienated 
mind."— ^w. Ed. 



196 HENRY VIII. [1535. 

tried for high treason. The jury hesitated to find 
such holy men guilty ; but Cromwell forced them, by 
menaces, to give the verdict he desired. They were 
executed at Tyburn on the 4th of May, 1535. Three 
more Carthusians at London, and two at York, suffer- 
ed the same fate shortly after. About the same time 
fourteen Dutch reformers, who had taken refuge in 
England, were burned as Anabaptists. 

More illustrious victims were now to bleed. Fisher 
and More had lain for upward of a twelvemonth in 
the Tower. The former, a man far advanced in life, 
would perhaps have been suffered to end his days in 
prison, had it not been that Paul III., the successor of 
Clement, subjected him to the suspicions of the gov- 
ernment by raising him to the dignity of cardinal.* 
Fisher, now on the verge of eternity, made light of the 
honour : " If the red hat," said he, " were lying at my 
feet, I would not stoop to pick it up." The king, on 
the other hand, is said to have declared that " the pope 
might send him a cardinal's hat, but that he should 
have no head to wear it." He was arraigned, on the 
17th of June, before the chancellor, the judges, and 
some of the peers, on a charge of having denied the 
king's supremacy, and was sentenced to die as a trai- 
tor. On the morning of his execution, the 22d, he 
dressed himself with great care. " My lord," said his 
servant, " surely you forget that, after the short space 
of some two hours, you must strip off these things, 
and never wear them more." "What of thatV re- 
plied he ; " dost thou not mark that this is my wed- 
ding-day I" On account of his infirmities, he was car- 
ried on a chair to the place of execution. He held in 
his hand a New Testament, which he opened at a ven- 
ture, and lighted on this passage : " And this is life 
eternal, that they might know thee, the only true 

* The object of Paul in bestowing this new dignity on the bish- 
op, undoubtedly was, the more effectually to protect him against 
the malice of his enemies. Unhappily, however, it had a directly 
opposite effect ; for Henry was incensed that the pope should 
think, by any grace he could confer, to screen an obnoxious sub- 
ject from his anger. — Am. Ed. 



1535.] EXECUTION OF FISHER. 197 

God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. I have 
glorified thee on earth, I have finished the work which 
thou gavest me to do." He closed the book, saying, 
'' Here is learning enough for me to my life's end," 
He mounted the scaffold without aid, briefly address- 
ed the spectators, telling them he came to die for the 
faith of Christ's Holy Cathohc Church, then meekly 
laid his head on the block, and it was severed from 
his body at a single blow. Thus perished this vener- 
able, upright, and pious prelate : a martyr to the rights 
of conscience. 

It had probably been hoped that this severity to- 
wards Fisher would have the effect of intimidating 
More, whose acquiescence in the new order of things 
it was thought of the utmost importance to gain. But, 
as no such result followed, he also was arraigned, on 
the 1st of July, for imagining to deprive the king of 
his title and dignity. His refusal to answer some en- 
snaring questions, which had been previously put to 
him, was pronounced to be malicious ; and Rich, the 
solicitor-general, was base enough to give in evidence 
such expressions as he had drawn from him in a con- 
fidential interview ; the truth of which, however, the 
prisoner denied, and which two persons v/ho were 
present said they did not hear. He was, notwith- 
standing, pronounced guilty. When asked what he 
had to say why judgment should not be given against 
him, he asserted that the act on which he was indicted 
was repugnant to the laws of God and his holy church, 
the supreme government of which no temporal prince 
might presume to take on himself, it being granted by 
our Saviour himself only to St. Peter and his succes- 
sors, bishops of the same see. The chancellor observ- 
ed, that, seeing the bishops, the universities, and best 
learned men in the realm had agreed to it, it was much 
marvelled that he alone should oppose it. More re- 
plied, that, if numbers were to decide, most bishops 
and good men, both of those who were now alive and 
those who were glorified saints in heaven, would be 
found to be on his side. Sentence was then passed 
on him, and he was reconducted to the Tower. 



198 HENRY VIII. [1535. 

At the Tower- wharf his favourite daughter, Marga- 
ret Roper, was waiting to meet him. When she be- 
held him she rushed through the guards, threw her 
arms about his neck, and kissed him. He gave her 
his blessing, and comforted her. She retired; but, 
overcome by filial affection, she ran back, took him 
again around the neck, and kissed him several times 
'• most lovingly." She then finally departed with a 
sorrowful heart, most of the by-standers shedding tears 
at this beautiful instance of natural affection. 

On the 6th of July, his friend Sir Thomas Pope came 
to him early in the morning, with directions from the 
king and council to prepare himself to die by nine 
o'clock. "Master Pope," said More, "I have been 
always much bounden to the king's highness for the 
benefits and honours that he hath still, from time to 
time, most bountifully heaped upon me ; and yet more 
bounden am I to his grace for putting me into this 
place, where I have had convenient time and space to 
have remembrance of my end. And, so help me God, 
most of all, Master Pope, am I beholden to his high- 
ness that it pleaseth him so shortly to rid me out of 
all the miseries of this wretched world ; and therefore 
will I not fail earnestly to pray for his grace, both here 
and in the world to come." Pope then told him that 
it was the king's wish that he should not make any 
address at his execution. More entreated him to in- 
tercede with the king to allow his daughter, Margaret 
Roper, to be present at his burial ; whereat Pope as- 
sured him that the king was content that his wife and 
family, and his friends, should be present at it. " Oh 
how much beholden then am I unto his grace," said 
More, " that unto my poor burial he vouchsafest to 
have so gracious consideration !" Sir Thomas Pope 
then took leave of him with tears. 

More now put on his best apparel, " as one that had 
been invited to a solemn feast ;" but, at the sugges- 
tion of the heutenant, he changed it. On coming to 
the scaffold, observing it to be weak and shaking, he 
said in his usual jocular manner, " I pray you, master 
lieutenant, see me safe up, and for my comitj^ down 



1535.J 



EXECUTION OF MORE. 199 



let me shift for myself." He called on the people to 
pray for him, and to bear witness that he suffered death 
in and for the faith of the Cathohc Church. He then 
knelt down and prayed : when he rose, the executioner, 
as usual, asked his forgiveness. " Pluck up thy spir- 
its, man," said he, " and be not afraid to do thine office. 
My neck is very short: take heed, therefore, thou 
strike not awry, for saving of thy honesty" [honour]. 
As he knelt at the block, he bade the executioner to 
stay till he had put his beard aside : " for," said he, 
" it never committed treason."* He prayed to him- 
self ; and the axe descending, terminated his mortal 
existence in the fifty-fifth year of his age.f 

None of the many violent acts committed by Henry 
has brought such obloquy on his name as the execu- 
tion of Sir Thomas More. For, exclusively of his 
having suffered in the cause of the Romish faith, More 
was a scholar and a distinguished member of the re- 
pubhc of letters. A general outcry was therefore 
raised by the friends of literature and the papacy. 
Erasmus published, under a feigned name, an inter- 
esting narrative of his martyrdom ; while Reginald 
Pole seized with avidity the occasion of pouring forth 

* There is a degree of levity in these sayings seemingly but lit- 
tle suited to so awful an occasion. Addison, in remarking on the 
conduct of Sir Thomas More at the time of his execution, says : 
" What was only philosophy in this extraordinary man, would be 
phrensy in one who did not resemble him as well in the cheerful- 
ness of his temper as in the sanctity of his manners." If such 
ih-timed witticisms would have betokened madness in a bad man, 
we should say that there is far more of folly than of " philosophy" 
in them, when uttered under such circumstances, even by a good 
man. — Am. Ed. 

t Another touching incident relating to his daughter is thus 
given by Sir James Mackintosh. " The love of Margaret Roper 
continued to display itself in those outwardly unavailing tokens of 
tenderness to his remains, by which affection seeks to perpetuate 
itself; ineffectually, indeed, for its object, but very effectually for 
exalting the heart and softening the soul. She procured his head 
to be taken down from London Bridge, where more odious pas- 
sions had struggled in pursuit of a species of infernal immortality 
by placing it. She kept it during her life as a sacred relic, and 
was buried with that object of fondness in her arms nine years 
after she was separated from her father." — Am. E(i 



200 HENRY vin. [1535. 

a torrent of declamation against Henry, whom the 
historian Giovio compares for this deed to Phalaris. 
The emperor told Sir Thomas Elliot, the Enghsh am- 
bassador, that he would rather have lost the best city 
in his dominions than such a counsellor. The English 
resident in Spain wrote that the greatest horror was 
felt there at the fate of the " thrice greatest" More and 
the holy maid of Kent : a union, by-the-way, which 
does no great credit to the former. Posterity have 
echoed these censures ; and the judicial murder of 
More (as it certainly was) passes for one of the 
blackest deeds ever perpetrated. 

Let us endeavour without prejudice to estimate the 
character of this eminent man. More was in private 
life the pattern of every social and domestic virtue ; 
his piety was sincere and void of ostentation ; and in 
integrity and firm adherence to the dictates of con- 
science, no man ever exceeded him. He was a good 
speaker, an elegant writer, and a well-read scholar; 
and his conversation abounded with innocent pleas- 
antry. Such were his merits. On the other hand, 
his jocularity frequently bordered on buffoonery ;* his 
religion was akin to abject superstition ; and he per- 
secuted without remorse those who presumed to dif- 
fer from what he considered the true church.f In his 
controversial writings he indulged in the grossest 
scurrility. His greatest work, the Utopia, has, we 
think, been well described as giving us " the impress- 
ion of its having proceeded from a very ingenious 
rather than a profound mind ;" and such, in fact, his 
mind was. Perhaps this is evinced also by the cir- 
cumstance, that More alone, among the lay scholars 
of his time, seems to have had a sincere belief in 
the papal doctrine. To sum up his character, he was 

* " I cannot tell," says Halle, " whether I should call him a 
foolish wise man, or a wise foolish man ; for undoubtedly he, be- 
sides his learning, had a great wit ; but it was so mingled with 
taunting and niockm|. that it seemed to them that best knew him 
Ihat he thought nothing to be well spoken of except he had min- 
jstered some mock in the communication." 

t See Appendix (H). 



1535.] BULL AGAINST HENRY. 201 

a devout, upright, sincere, amiable, learned, and in- 
genious man, good rather than great. What the poet 
says of Wolsey, that " his overthrow heaped happi- 
ness upon him," may be appHed to More. If he had 
not died the victim of a tyrant, his fame would prob- 
ably never have attained its present eminence.* 



CHAPTER IV. 

HENRY VIII. (continued). 

1535-1538. 

Visitation of Convents. — Death of Queen Catharine. — Trial and 
Execution of Queen Anne. — Risings of the Peasantry.— Death 
of Queen Jane. — Suppression of the Monasteries. — Reginald 
Pole. 

When intelligence of the deaths of More and Fisher 
reached Rome, the indignation of the pope and car- 
dinals was boundless ; and, on the 30th of August, a 
terrible denunciatory bull was prepared. By this, if 
Henry did not retrace his steps, he and all his abettors 
were cited to appear at Rome within ninety days, un- 
der pain of excommunication ; he was to be dethro- 
ned, his subjects released from their allegiance, and liis 
kingdom placed under interdict ; the issue of Aime 
was declared illegitimate ; all commerce with foreign 
states was forbidden, and all treaties with them an- 
nulled ; the clergy were ordered also to depart from 
the kingdom, and the nobility to take arms against 
their king ! Henry took every precaution to prevent 
the bill from getting into his dominions : he drew 
more closely the bonds of alliance with France, and 

* For a somewhat different and still more favourable opinion of 
Sir Thomas More, and a full and highly interesting account of his 
trial and death, see Mackintosh's History of England, ii., 152, et 
seq., Harpers' edition. 



202 HENRY VIII. [1535. 

entered into relations with the German Protestants,* 
whose leading divines he invited over to England. 
The vacant dioceses of Salisbury, Worcester, St. 
Asaph, Hereford, and Rochester, were respectively 
conferred on Shaxton, Latimer, Barlow, Fox the al- 
moner, and Hilsey, superior of the Black Friars in 
London : all professors of the reformed opinions. 

The monks and friars, who saw their own ruin in 
the new state of things, were strongly opposed to the 
separation from Rome ; and, both secretly and openly, 
excited the people against these changes. The sup- 
pression of at least a large number of their convents 
was resolved on : a measure of which Wolsey, with 
the pope's permission, had already given the example. 
The king, as head of the church, appointed Cromwell 
his vicar-general for visiting the religious corpora- 
tions, with power to nominate his deputies ; and in 
October, the visiters, armed with most ample inquisi- 
torial powers, set out on their mission. They found, 
as was expected, feuds, factions, and disorders of ev- 
ery kind, and in several instances the grossest im- 
morality ; while pious frauds and false relics beguiled 
the credulity of the people. At the same time, many, 
especially the larger abbeys, were quite free from all 
gross irregularities. Some, terrified by a conscious- 
ness of guilt, m.ade a voluntary surrender of their rev- 
enues; that of Langden setting the example. In all 
the convents of both sexes, the inmates under the 
age of four-and-twenty were set at liberty, if they de- 
sired it. Of this permission many victims of avarice 
and family pride took advantage : for here, as wher- 
ever monachism prevails, the younger children of a 
family were often compelled to take the vows, in or- 
der that the fortune of the eldest son might not be di- 
minished. The report of the visiters was soon after 
pubhshed, and the crimes of the recluses were expos- 
ed, no doubt with some exaggeration. A feeling was 
thus excited against them ; and when parliament met, 

*• They were so named from having- " protested" against the 
decree of the Diet at Spires, in 1529, forbidding innovation in reli- 
gion. 



1536.] DEATH OF QUEEN CATHARINE. 203 

in February, 1536, an act was passed for suppressing 
all monasteries possessing less than jC200 ($900) a 
year, and giving their property and estates to the 
king. The number thus suppressed was three hundred 
and seventy-six ; their annual income was £32,000 
($154,000,) and their property was valued at £100,000 
($480,000).* The universities also were visited, and 
the course of study in them was changed. 

On the 8th of January, 1536, Queen Catharine 
breathed her last at Kimbolton, in Huntingdonshire, 
in the fiftieth year of her age. A little before her 
death, she dictated a letter to the king, styling him 
" her most dear lord, king, and husband ;" advising 
him to attend to his spiritual concerns, assuring him 
of her forgiveness, commending their daughter to his 
care, and making a few trifling requests. She thus 
concluded : " Lastly, I make this vow, that mine eyes 
have desired you above all things." Henry was 
moved even to tears with this last proof of the affec- 
tion of one whom he had once loved, and whom he 
had never ceased to esteem. He gave orders that 
her funeral should be suited to her birth ; but he would 
not permit her to be buried, as she desired, in a con- 
vent of the Observants ; and the ashes of the daughter 
of Ferdinand and Isabel repose at Peterborough. Her 
character remains the object of respect to all parties, 
as that of an upright, pious, and virtuous matron ; 
with the single drawback, in the estimation of the un- 
prejudiced, that she persisted to her death in the as- 
sertion of a falsehood. 

It could not be expected that Queen Anne should 
feel much grief at the death of one whom she must 
have regarded as a rival ; but she might have abstained 
from an indecent expression of joy.f How short- 
sighted are mortals ! She probably deemed her state 
now secure; yet she was standing on the brink of 

* The number of monastic recluses ejected by the suppression 
of these institutions was estimated at between six and seven thou- 
sand, independent of their servants and retainers. — Am. Ed. 

t " Anne Boleyn wore yellow for the mourning of Catharine of 
Aragon." (Halle, Sanders.) 



204 HENRY VIII. [1536. 

the precipice over which she was ere long to be pre- 
cipitated. 

On the 29th of January Anne gave birth to a still- 
born male child ; for which misfortune Henry, it is 
said, reproached her brutally. She had, in fact, lost 
his capricious affections ; which, as in her own case, 
had been transferred to one of her attendants, Jane, 
the daughter of Sir John Seymour ; and he was now 
on the look-out for a pretext to divorce his queen. 
Anne, who was aware of his passion for her maid, had 
reproached him with it on more than one occasion. 
The king's desire to frame a plausible charge against 
her was well known at court ; and, as the sprightli- 
ness of the queen's temper bordered on levity, some 
little matters which resulted from it were reported to 
him with exaggeration, and by him greedily received. 
A commission was issued on the 25th of April, to sev- 
eral noblemen and judges (among whom was her own 
father), to investigate the affair. On May-day there 
was a tilting-match at Greenwich, before the king and 
queen, in which her brother, Lord Rochfort, and Nor- 
ris, groom of the stole, were principal actors. In the 
midst of it something occurred which disturbed the 
king ;* and he rose abruptly, quitted the gallery, and 
set off with a few attendants for Westminster. The 
queen also rose and retired to her apartments, where 
she remained in great anxiety. Next day she entered 
her barge and was proceeding to Westminster, when, 
on the river, she was met by her uncle the ]>uke 
of Norfolk, and some other lords of the council, and 
conducted to the Tower, on a charge of adultery and 
treason. She asserted her innocence in the strongest 
terms. At the gate of that fatal fortress she fell on 
her knees and said, " Oh Lord, help me, as I am guilt- 
less of this whereof I am accused !" When the lords 
were gone, she said to the lieutenant, " Mr. Kingston, 
shall I go into a dungeon V " No, madam," oaid he, 

* The story of her dropping her handkerchief, and Norris taking 
it up and wiping his face with it, is told by Sanders, and is prob- 
ably one of his inventions. Lingard quotes it without naming his 
authority. 



1536.] IMPRISONMENT OF QUEEN ANNE. 205 

" you shall go into your lodging that you lay in at 
your coronation." " It is too good for me," she re- 
plied ; " Jesu, have mercy on me !" and she knelt 
down and wept, and then burst into laughter, the usual 
effect of hysterics : for such appears to have been the 
effect of her sudden misfortunes on her frame. Her 
aunt. Lady Boleyn, and Mrs. Cousins, with both of 
whom she was on ill terms, lay in the room with her, 
with directions to draw her into discourse, and to re- 
port all that she said. 

Cranmer had been directed by the king to come to 
Lambeth, but not to approach the court. His con- 
stitutional timidity did not prevent him from making 
an effort for his lovely and unhappy patroness ; and 
on the 6th he wrote a persuasive letter to Henry. On 
that same day Anne herself wrote to her hard-hearted 
lord that beautiful letter* which is still extant, every 
line of which breathes the consciousness of innocence 
and the purity of virtue :t but neither justice nor 
mercy had now any place in the heart of Henry. 

At the same time with the queen were arrested 
her brother Lord Rochfort, and Norris, with Sir 
Francis Weston and William Brereton, gentlemen of 
the privy chamber, and Mark Smeaton, a musician, 
who had been made a groom of the chamber for his 
musical talents. On the 10th, an indictment was 
found by the grand jury at Westminster against the 
queen and the above mentioned for high treason ; as, 
by a forced interpretation of the statute 25 Edw. HL, 
the adultery with which they were all charged was 
made out to be. On the 12th, the four commoners 
were tried before a common jury, and found guilty. 
The three gentlemen affirmed the queen's innocence 
and their own ; Smeaton pleaded guilty ; probably 
having been induced so to do by some promise of 
mercy. When the king heard that Norris refused to 

* See Appendix (I). 

t Lingard denies the genuineness of this letter. Has he read, 
or does he despise the arguments of Mackintosh in its favour ? 
ii.. 164, 301, Harpers' edition. 

Vol. n.— S 



206 HENRY VIII. [1536. 

confess, he cried, " Hang him up, then ! hang him up, 
then !" 

Three days after, on the 15th, the queen and her 
brother were tried in the hall of the Tower. Their 
uncle of Norfolk presided, and six-and-twenty other 
peers (among whom, it is to be feared, was their fa- 
ther*) sat in judgment. The queen had no counsel ; 
she was only attended by her ladies, and her coun- 
tenance was cheerful and serene. When directed to 
lay aside the insignia of her rank, she complied, say- 
ing that she had never misconducted herself towards 
the king. She readily answered all the charges made 
against her, and those not in the secret anticipated 
an acquittal ; bat a majority of the peers, on their 
honour, pronounced the brother and sister guilty of 
incestuous adultery; and she was sentenced to be 
burned or beheaded, at the king's pleasure. When she 
heard this sentence, she raised her hands and cried, 
" Oh Father and Creator ! oh thou who art the way, the 
truth, and the life ! thou knowest that I have not de- 
served this death." She then addressed her judges, 
and with dignity and calmness solemnly protested 
her innocence. t Rochfort was then tried. " There 
was brought against him as a witness," says Wyatt, 
" his wicked wife, accuser of her own husband, to the 
seeking of his blood." He made a noble defence, 
but to no purpose, for his destruction was resolved on. 

And what, it may be asked, was the evidence on 
which a queen of England was thus sentenced to an 
ignominious death] Lady Wingfield, who had been 
in her service, was said, when on her death-bed, to 
have made some communications to some one ; as if 
any one, when well paid, could not swear that anything 

* " To whom were adjoined twenty-six other peers, and among 
them the queen's father."— Harleian MSS., No, 2194. 

t " The records of her trial and conviction have perished," says 
Lingrard, " perhaps by the hands of those who respected her mem- 
ory.'' " Had he read Burnet with any care," observes Hallam, 
" he would have found that they were seen by that historian." In 
his last edition Lingard asserts that " we still possess the most 
important of the few documents seen by Burnet, and some others 
of which he was ignorant." 



1536.] TRIAL OF QUEEN ANNE. 207 

was said by a dead person. According to the disgust- 
ing language of the indictment, the queen was in 
every case the seducer. The act of criminahty with 
Norris was placed in October, 1533 ; that with Bre- 
reton in the following December; with Weston in 
May, 1534 ; with Smeaton in April, 1535 ; and with 
her brother in the last November ;* and, although all 
remained in her service, no proof was offered of any 
repetitions of the offence. Such evidence would not 
for a moment be attended to at the present day by 
any honest jury. 

On the 17th, Rochfort and the others were led to 
execution. Rochfort exhorted his companions to die 
with courage ; he warned the by-standers not to trust 
in courts, states, or kings, but in Heaven alone ; and 
he prayed for the king, that he might have a long and 
happy life. They ail died protesting their innocence, 
except Smeaton, who was executed last, and may 
therefore still have had hopes of mercy. He said that 
he well deserved death ; but this might only mean that 
he had calumniated others. When the queen was 
told the next day what he had said, she indignantly 
exclaimed, " Has he not, then, cleared me from the 
public shame he has done me 1 Alas ! I fear his soul 
will suffer from his false accusation." 

An attempt, the true motive of which we cannot as- 
sign, to make the Earl of Northumberland acknowl- 
edge a precontract with the queen, having failed, the 
king and queen appeared by their proctors in the arch- 
episcopal court on the 17th ; and the unhappy primate 
(with anguish of heart we make no doubt) had to en- 
dure the mortification of pronouncing the marriage of 
his innocent friend utterly void, in consequence of cer- 
tain just and legal impediments then confessed on her 
part.f Cranmer, who was appointed to be her con- 
fessor, had visited her the day before. | It was thought, 
even by herself, that she would only be banished ; but 
her tyrant would not be thus contented, and the fatal 

* Turner, from the Birch MSS., 4293. 

t WUkiris, Conciha, iii., 803. 

j Kingston's Letters in Cavendish. 



208 HENRY VIII. [1536. 

order came. All doubt and fear were now at an end. 
" I have seen," says Kingston, " many men and also 
women executed, and that they have been in great 
sorrow : to my knowledge, this lady hath more joy 
and pleasure in death." She reviewed her past life, 
and it appearing to her that she had been rather harsh 
in her treatment of the Lady Mary, she made Lady 
Kingston sit in her chair of state, and, kneeling before 
her, with tears expressed her sorrow and remorse, 
and made her promise that she would thus kneel be- 
fore the princess and implore her forgiveness. " Mr. 
Kingston," said she, " I hear say I shall not die before 
noon, and I am very sorry therefor : I thought to be 
dead and past my pain." He told her " it would be no 
pain, it was so subtle." She replied, " I heard say 
the executioner was very good, and I have a little 
wec^," and she put her hand about it, smiling. 

Next day, the 19th, a little before noon, she was led 
to the scaffold, which was erected on the green within 
the Tower : all strangers were excluded. There were 
present the dukes of Suff'olk and Richmond (the king's 
natural son), the chancellor. Secretary Cromwell, the 
lord-mayor and aldermen. She addressed her audi- 
tory in these words, probably suggested by Cranmer : 
" Good Christian people, I am come hither to die : for 
according to the law and by the law I am judged to 
die, and therefore I will speak nothing against it; I 
am come hither to accuse no man, nor to speak any- 
thing of that whereof I am accused and condemned to 
die ; but I pray God to save the king and send him 
long to reign over you, for a gentler [nobler] nor more 
merciful prince was there never, and to me he was ever 
a good, gentle, and sovereign lord ; and if any person 
will meddle with my cause, I require them to judge 
the best. And thus I take my leave of the world and 
of you all, and I heartily desire you all to pray for me. 
Oh Lord, have mercy upon me ! To God I commend 
my soul." Then calmly removing her hat and collar, 
she knelt down and said, " To Jesus Christ I commend 
my soul. Lord Jesu, receive my soul!" One stroke 
of the sword terminated her life. Her remains were 



1536.] ARTICLES OF FAITH. 209 

thrown into an elm box, and interred without ceremo- 
ny in the chapel.* 

Thus was completed this barbarous judicial murder, 
not to be paralleled in imperial Rome or the despotic 
East.t That no doubts might remain as to his real 
motives, Henry married Jane Seymour the very next 
day. The Lady Mary was now admitted to favour, 
on her signing articles acknowledging the king's su- 
premacy and her own illegitimacy; but she honoura- 
bly refused to give up the names of her friends and 
advisers, nor did the king insist on it. A parliament 
was summoned, which ratified all the late proceed- 
ings, and enacted whatever the king required. 

In the convocation, where Cromwell presided as the 
king's representative, ten articles of faith were agr ed 
on. It was an attempt to take a middle course be- 
tween the two parties, and was therefore pleasing to 
neither. 

The suppression of the monasteries, which was ef- 
fected during this summer, caused great discontent 
among the people. The loss of the alms distributed 
at them was felt by the poor and the idle ; the many 
associations of superstition, as well as piety, connect- 
ed with them, had been harshly broken asunder ; the 
prospect of the decay of these religious edifices, or 
their conversion into secular dwellings, was unpleas- 

* It is affectingly stated, that her female attendants, " though 
fainting and drowned in tears, would not trust the remains of their 
beautiful and beloved mistress to the executioner and his brutal 
assistants. They washed away the blood which now made her 
face ghastly, and her fair form an object of horror." — Am. Ed. 

t " It may be truly said," observes Mackintosh, " that Henry, 
as if he had intended to levy war against every various sort of 
natural virtue, proclaimed, by the executions of More and of 
Anne, that he henceforward bade defiance to compassion, affec- 
tion, and veneration. A man without a good quality would per- 
haps be in the condition of a monster in the physical v;orld, 
where distortion and deformity in every organ seem incompatible 
with life. But, in these two direful deeds, Henry perhaps ap- 
proached as nearly to the idea! standard of perfect wickedness 
as the infirmities of human nature will allow." — See his History 
of England, ii., eh. vii., Harpers' edition.--ylm. Ed. 
S2 



210 HENRY VIII. [1536. 

ing ; and, moreover, then, as at all times, the clergy- 
had been the most lenient of landlords. The sight of 
the ejected brethren, many of them advanced in years, 
wandering about the country, moved the people to 
pity ; and they Avere assured that this was only the 
first step towards depriving them of all religion, and 
subjecting them to an unheard-of tyranny. 

These discontents fermenting in their bosoms 
through the summer, as soon as the harvest was 
completed, the peasantry of Lincolnshire assembled 
in arms, to the number of twenty thousand. Their 
leader was Dr. Mackrel, late prior of Barlings, who 
assumed the title of Captain Cobler. They sent to 
the king a statement of their grievances, which in- 
cluded all the late changes made in the church ; and, 
complaining of the admission of low-born persons to 
the royal councils (meaning Cranmer and Cromwell), 
they prayed the king to assemble his nobility and de- 
vise remedies. The answer returned was the appear- 
ance of the Duke of Suffolk with a body of troops, 
preceded by a royal reproof of the presumption of 
" the rude commons of one shire, and that the most 
brute and beastly of the whole realm," in attempting 
to find fault with their prince for the electing of his 
counsellors and prelates ; and commanding them to 
surrender their leaders and one hundred others, and 
then to go to their homes. By Suffolk's advice, how- 
ever, a milder proclamation was afterward put forth, 
and the insurgents finally dispersed. 

Tlie cause of this mildness was the breaking out 
of a far more formidable insurrection in the counties 
north of the Humber, where the people were still 
more ignorant and superstitious than in the southern 
parts. The clergy had secretly instigated them ; and 
the harsh collection of the subsidy granted by the 
late parliament afforded the occasion. The gentry, 
who shared their feeHngs, hesitated to risk their lives 
and fortunes by coming forward openly; but they 
found an efficient leader in one Robert Aske, a lawyer 
of some property in Yorkshire. The insurrection 
was named the Pilgrimage of Grace ; priests, bearing 



1536.] RISINGS OF THE PEASANTRY. 211 

crosses, appeared in the van ; their banner displayed 
on one side the Redeemer, on the other the host and 
chahce ; and on the sleeve of every pilgrim were 
v^rought the five wounds of Jesus, with his holy 
name in the midst of them. Aske first laid siege to 
Pontefract, in which the Archbishop of York and the 
Lord Darcy had taken refuge. The gates were open- 
ed through the influence of the prelate and peer, who 
secretly wished well to the insurgents ; and who, after 
a decent show of reluctance, took the oath by which 
the pilgrims were bound. York and Hull also sur- 
rendered ; and the castles of Skipton and Scarborough 
alone resisted. 

The Earl of Shrewsbury, though without orders, 
raised his tenantry to oppose the rebels. The royal 
commands to levy troops were obeyed by the Mar- 
quis of Exeter and other nobles ; and at length the 
Duke of Norfolk, as general of the royal forces, ad- 
vanced to Doncaster. His army, which did not ex- 
ceed five thousand men, was divided from that of the 
rebels, of forty thousand, by the river Don, which 
could only be passed either by the bridge in the town 
or a ford at a little distance. The insurgents, relying 
on their numbers, resolved to attempt to force the 
passage of the ford ; but there fell so much rain in 
the night that it became impassable. The duke then 
sent a herald to Aske, who received him sitting in a 
chair of state, with the archbishop on one side, and 
Lord Darcy on the other. It was agreed that they 
should send two gentlemen to the king, to learn his 
pleasure. After being detained for some time, the 
deputies returned, with an offer of pardon to all but 
six who were then, and four who were afterward to 
be named. These terms were rejected, and new ne- 
gotiations were opened, but to no effect. The rebels 
once more prepared to force the ford, and again the 
rains swelled the stream. Their superstitious minds 
saw in this a withdrawal from them of the favour of 
Heaven ; they accordingly began to despond and to 
disperse ; and the arrival of an act of amnesty caused 
them all to retire to their homes. Aske was invited 



212 HENRY VIII. [1537. 

to court, where he was kindly treated ; but Lord Dar- 
cy, who made some delay when summoned, was, on 
his arrival, cast into the Tower, as was also Lord 
Hussey, who was charged with having favoured the 
Lincolnshire rebels. 

The people of the north were, however, soon again 
in arms, in 1537; and eight thousand men, headed 
by Nicholas Musgrave and Thomas Tilby, gentlemen 
of Cumberland, attempted to surprise Carlisle. They 
failed, however, and in their retreat they were met 
and defeated with great slaughter by the Duke of 
Norfolk. Musgrave escaped ; but the other leaders 
were taken and hanged, with seventy inferior per- 
sons, on the walls of Carlisle. An attempt on Hull 
by Sir Francis Bigot and a Mr. Halem, had a similar 
result. Aske, who made his escape when he heard 
of the rising, was taken and hanged at York ; and 
several other gentlemen were executed at different 
places. The venerable Lord Darcy was beheaded on 
Tower Hill, and Lord Hussey at Lincoln. Six priors, 
among whom was Mackrel, were hung for their share 
in the rebellion. In the month of July, a general am- 
nesty was issued. One of the demands of the rebels 
was complied with : for a court Avas, by patent, erect- 
ed at York for the decision of lawsuits in the north. 

To the joy of the king and kingdom, on the 12th of 
October, Queen Jane gave birth to a son, who was 
named Edward ; but, within a few days, that joy was 
damped by the death of the mother. The grief of 
the king was considerable ; but it gave way to his 
satisfaction at the dangers of a disputed succession 
being now terminated. To the queen herself it may 
have been a fortunate event that nature, not the axe 
of injustice, terminated her mortal life : as a pretext 
would surely have been found for destroying her, if 
the despot's eye had been caught by some other ob- 
ject. The young prince was created Prince of Wales ; 
his uncle. Sir WiUiam Seymour, earl of Hertford ; Sir 
William Fitzwilliam, Earl of Southampton ; Sir Will- 
iam Paulet, Lord St. John ; and Sir John Russell, Lord 
Russell. 



1537.] SUPPRESSION OF MONASTERIES. 213 

Towards the close of the year, a book, entitled 
" The Godly and Pious Institute of a Christian Man," 
compiled by the bishops and revised by the king, was 
published by the royal authority. It was divided into 
sections, treating of the Creed, Sacraments, Deca- 
logue, Lord's Prayer, Ave Maria, Justification, and 
Purgatory ; and contained as much of the reformed 
opinions as Cranmer and his friends were able to in- 
troduce into it. This year was also signaHzed by the 
publication, with the royal sanction, of the Bible, 
translated into English by Tindale and Coverdale.* 

The suppression of the remaining monasteries was 
now finally resolved on. Their wealth made them an 
object of cupidity to the king and his rapacious cour- 
tiers ; the reformers viewed them as the strongholds 
of popery, which, they thought, could never be eradi- 
cated while they were suffered to remain ; the con- 
vents of the north had openly aided the late rebellion ; 
and those of the south had secretly furnished the 
rebels with money. The visitations were accord- 
ingly renewed, and threats and artifices were em- 
ployed, frequently with success, to obtain surrenders. 
The recluses themselves, in anticipation of the com- 
ing storm, had been making preparations to meet it, 
by embezzling the moveable property of their con- 
vents to a great extent, and renewing the leases of 
their lands at low rents, on receiving large fines : so 
that they had often but little reluctance in giving up 
their monastic seclusion. Many of them, indeed, were 
even glad to escape from the irksome monotony of a 

* The INew Testament had been translated and published by 
John Wickliffe 150 years before ; but it was speedily suppressed. 
The translation of the Bible by Tindale was published by him at 
Antwerp, and first circulated in England in 1526. The circula- 
tion of the sacred Scriptures in the vernacular tongue was deem- 
ed to be of vital importance by Cranmer; and it was through his 
efforts, aided by Cromwell, that Henry's consent to their publica- 
tion was obtained. So great was the joy of Cranmer at this 
event, that, in a letter of thanks to Cromwell for his co-operation 
in bringing it about, he says, " This deed you shall hear of at 
the great day, when all things shall be opened and made mani- 
fest." — Am. Ed, 



214 HENRY VIII. [1337. 

monastic life. Hence the crown met with but little 
opposition. Pensions, varying according to their 
rank and good conduct, were settled on the monks, 
till they should receive livings in the church of equal 
dignity and value.* The suppression was completed 
in the course of two years ; and the annual income 
which thus fell to the crown amounted to more than 
^130,000 ($624,000). 

The abbots of Glastonbury, Reading, and Colchester 
were executed, on charges of having aided the north- 
ern rebels ; the vices of others were made pubhc ; but 
the people remarked that these were the crimes of 
individuals, not of the order. It was then determined 
to expose the false relics and the "lying wonders" 
to be found in even the most respectable convents. 
ElevQn houses, it was ascertained, possessed a girdle 
belonging to the Virgin ; one exhibited some of the 
coals that roasted St. Laurence ; and the ear cut by 
the sword of St. Peter from the head of Malchus gave 
fame to one, as the parings of the toenails of St. Ed- 
mund did to another, in which also the penknife and 
boots of St. Thomas of Canterbury were believed to 
work miracles. The teeth of St. Apollonia, which 
cured the toothache, were so multiplied, that, when 
collected, they filled a tun. At Reading there was 
the wooden image of an angel, with but one wing, 
which was said to have flown into England with the 
spear-head that pierced our Saviour's side. The mon- 
astery at Hales, in Gloucestershire, had a vial decla- 
red to contain a portion of the Redeemer's blood, to 
behold which pilgrims flocked from all quarters. But 
the votary often looked in vain for the beatific vision ; 

* " The pensions to the superiors appear to have varied from 
26(Jl. (f 1276) to 61. (,^29) per annum. The priors of cells re- 
ceived generally 13Z. ($62) a year; and a few, whose services 
merited the distmction, obtained 20/. (?596). To the other monks 
were allotted pensions of 6/., 41, 21., with a small sum to each 
one at his departure, to provide for his immediate wants. The 
pensions to nuns averaged about 4/." — Lingard. He states that 
money was of about ten times the value then that it is now. In 
the last edition of his history he more correctly says " six or seven 
times." 



1537.] SUPPRESSION OF MONASTERIES. 215 

and tlieii his penitence, he was told, was incomplete, 
because he had not purchased enough of masses. 
More money was required to be paid, and at length, 
perhaps, his eyes were blessed with a sight of the 
mysterious blood. The secret was found to be, that 
the vial, which contained some blood obtained for the 
purpose, was opaque on one side, and was turned about 
by the priests to suit their purpose. At Boxley, in 
Kent, was the crucifix named the Rood of Grace ; 
which moved its head, eyes, lips, &c., all being effect- 
ed by secret cords and wires. These various impo- 
sitions were exposed at St. Paul's, v/hither also were 
brought other idols from all parts of the country. 
Among them came a huge rood from Wales, named 
Darvel Gatheren, to which large offerings used to be 
made. An old prophecy had said that it should burn 
a forest; and, in cruel mockery, it was made to form 
part of the fire that consumed one friar Forest, who 
denied the supremacy.* 

St. Thomas of Canterbury was proceeded against, 
and condemned as a traitor : his name was struck 
out of the calendar, his office expunged from the 
breviary, and his bones were taken up and burned. 
The scull was found with the rest, though the monks 
used to exhibit it to the pilgrims. His shrine was 
broken up ; and the gold and jewels it contained filled 
two chests, which it required eight men to carry. 
There was a festival, called the translation of his 
body, celebrated every j^ear ; and a jubilee of fifteen 
days every fiftieth year, which drew a great concourse 
of pilgrims to Canterbury, one hundred thousand be- 
ing known to have been there at one time. The of- 
ferings, therefore, were numerous ; for the canonized 
saints, like Eastern kings, were not to be approached 
without a present. 

While the evils and frauds of the monastic institu- 
tions were thus sedulously displayed, care w^as taken 
to persuade the nation that the transfers of their rev- 

* We search the earher editions of Lingard in vain for any 
allusion to these pious frauds. In his last edition he does allude' 
to them. 



216 HENRY VIII. [1538. 

enu.es to the crown would be productive of inestima- 
ble public benefits. There would be an end, they 
were assured, of pauperism and taxation ; as the rev- 
enues which the crown would thus possess would en- 
able it to maintain fleets and armies, build fortresses, 
execute pubhc works, maintain the court, and form 
institutions for learning and charity, without applying 
any more to the purses of its subjects. Fortunately 
for the public liberties, these splendid anticipations, 
as we shall see, were never realized. 

With respect to the legal and moral character of 
the transaction, there are many points to be consider- 
ed. If the Reformation was to proceed, the monaste- 
ries must be destroyed, as they were the strongholds 
of the dominant superstition. Property no doubt is 
sacred, of whatever kind it may be, and should not be 
touched without the most urgent state-necessity, to 
which even the rights of private, and much more those 
of corporate property, must give way. In the latter 
case it is, however, a principle, that the rights of the 
actual possessors, and of those who have a reasona- 
ble certainty of succeeding them, should be regarded : 
hence it is said that the abolition should have been 
gradual ; that the convents should have been prohib- 
ited to receive any more members ; and that, as the 
actual members died oif, the revenues should fall to 
the crown. But this would have been inconsistent 
with the success of the great object proposed, as the 
papal party would thus have retained for many years 
the means of checking the progress of the Reforma- 
tion ; and the claims of justice were perhaps suffi- 
ciently satisfied by giving pensions, as was done, to 
the members of the suppressed convents. Again, it 
is said that the monastic lands should have gone to 
the representatives of the original donors : but where 
were they to be found? Who could prove himself, 
for instance, to be the heir of the baron or knight 
who, in the reign of Henry I. or II., had given lands 
to a monastery for the good of his soul 1 Besides, 
such a right of reversion is hardly ever contemplated ; 
and those who make grants or bequests of this kind 



.1538.] SUPPRESSION OF MONASTERIES. 217 

part with all rights over them, which thus become 
subject to the control of the legislature. Lastly, it is 
said that the entire of these revenues should have 
been devoted to the support of religion and learning : 
but a fifth of the lands of the kingdom was by far too 
much for this purpose, though we will not say that it 
might not have been better if tithes had been abolish- 
ed, and lands to the same amount retained for the sup- 
port of the church. Yet many difficulties would prob- 
ably have attended this plan, and perhaps, under all the 
circumstances, none was preferable to the one which 
was adopted : that of sharing the lands among the no- 
bihty and gentry of the realm.*! 

This is said to have been a suggestion of Crom- 
well's ; who, aware of the selfishness of human na- 
ture, believed that the surest way to make the nobles 
and gentry adverse to Rome was to make it their in- 
terest to be so ; and this effect was produced. One 
cannot, however, contemplate without disgust the un- 
principled cupidity and rapacity of the vultures of the 
court (among Avhom were the founders of some of the 
noblest and wealthiest families now in the kingdom), 
or the reckless prodigality of the monarch himself; 
who, for example, set a peal of church bells on a cast 
of the dice ; gave, it is said,J the revenues of a con- 

* Latimer and other reformers pleaded in vain for the preserva- 
tion of some of the convents. Hume justly thinks that many of 
the nunneries might have been retained as places of honourable 
retreat for single women. In vain did the gentry of the county 
plead for the blameless nunnery of Godstow, near Oxford ; purity 
and innocence were no defence against the rapacity of the king 
and his courtiers. 

t According to our notions, a far more equitable, as well as 
beneficial use of this vast landed property, would have been to 
sell it to the agricultural occupants of it, and thus created a nu- 
merous body of independent yeomanry ; and to have employed the 
funds thus obtained in the education of the people, and for other 
purposes the most important and valuable to the state. Had this 
been done, though English nobles might have been less rich, the 
English people would have been far more enlightened ; nor would 
they have been at this day without a system of national education. 
^Am. Ed. 

i Only, we believe, by Sanders. 

Vol IL— T 



218 HENRY VIII. [1540. 

vent to a woman who made a pudding to suit his pal- 
ate ; and those of another to the man who set his 
chair in a position that pleased him before the fire. 
Some of the abbey lands were bestowed on the cour- 
tiers ; others were sold or exchanged at such low 
rates as to differ little from gifts ; and, after all the 
magnificent prospects that had been held out, parlia- 
ment was called upon in 1540, the very year after it 
had vested the monastic property in the king, for a 
large subsidy, on account of the great expense of re- 
forming the religion of the state ; so completely had 
the voracious courtiers carried off the spoils.* 

When we view the ruins of Fountains and other 
magnificent piles, the glory of architecture and pride 
of the island, it is impossible to suppress a sigh at 
such Vandalic devastation as was then committed, or 
to avoid wishing that more of these stately edifices 
had been preserved, and a portion of their revenues 
appropriated to their maintenance. But the very lead 
with which they were roofed sufficed to attract the 
royal cupidity. The abbot's house and offices were 
left standing, for the use of the grantee or purchaser; 
but the church and all the other buildings- were strip- 
ped, and suffered to go to ruin. The destruction of 
books, too, was lamentable : the convent library was 
always given in with the bargain to the person who 
obtained the house and lands. The books were torn 
up for the most trifling purposes, or sold to the shop- 
keepers ; while whole shiploads of vellum manuscripts 
were sent over sea for the use of the bookbinders. 
We are told by a contemporary, that one tradesman 
purchased two libraries for forty shillings ; and that 
the contents had lasted him in his business for ten 
years, and were likely to last him as much longer. 
Great loss has thus been sustained by English history, 
and perhaps by classical literature. 

Another act of injustice perpetrated at this time 

By this last and his former confiscations, it is supposed that 
Henry changed the possession of nearly one fourth of the whole 
landed property of the kingdom ; so vast had been the possessions 
in the hands of the religious orders. — Am. Ed. 



1540.] 



TITHES. 219 



was in the case of the impropriated tithes.* The reg- 
ular clergy had gradually contrived to deprive the sec- 
ular clergy of their tithes, to the amount of two fifths 
of the whole, appointing vicars with paltry stipends to 
do the duty.f In all justice, these should have revert- 
ed to their original destination ; but they shared the 
fate of the other monastic revenues, and went, where 
they still remain, into the possession of laymen.J The 
more, in fact, we view the mode in which this secu- 
larization of monastic property was effected, the more 
we are disgusted with the scandalous rapacity of those 
who were the principal gainers ; for their subsequent 
conduct proved that religion had nothing to do with it, 

* Tithes once paid to the clergy, but afterward secularized, or 
diverted to the possession and use of the laity. — Am. Ed. 

t The monastic orders were styled the regular clergy, because 
they had taken a vow to live according to certain prescribed regu- 
IcB or rules, enjoining celibacy, retirement, poverty, &c.,to distin- 
guish them from the secular clergy; so called from their being 
permitted to live after the manner of the world, and not being sub- 
ject to these rules. — Am. Ed. 

X The system of tithes, or the support of religious institutions 
and the clergy by taking a tenth of the products of the land for 
that ODJect, is derived from the theocratic polity of the Jews. It 
is declared in the law by Moses, that " the tithe of the land, 
whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree, is the 
Lord's : it is holy unto the Lord. And concerning the tithe of 
the herd or of the flock, the tenth shall be holy unto the Lord." — 
Num. xxvii., 30, 32. This system, however, was not introduced 
into the Christian Church until several centuries after its estab- 
lishment. In its first and purest periods it was sustained by the 
voluntary contributions of the people. The payment of tithes ap- 
pears not to have been canonically enjoined in France until near 
the close of the sixth century. That this tax was highly obnox- 
ious to the people, even in those times of superstitious obedience 
to the mandates of ecclesiastical power, is evident from the cir- 
cumstance that, from the sixth to the eighth century, it was made 
a constant topic of discourse in the sermons of the clergy. The 
payment of tithes, as being civilly binding, was first recognised by 
a statute of Charlemagne, in the beginnmg of the ninth century. 
Tithes were abolished in France at the commencement of the rev- 
olution ; and the clergy of all denominations in that country are 
now supported out of the revenues of the state. There is no more 
fruitful source of popular discontent in England than the pertina- 
cious adherence to this impolitic, unequal, and therefore inequita- 
bie mode of sustaining the institutions of religion.— .Aw. Ed. 



220 ' HENRY VIII. [1540. 

since, when a popish sovereign afterward mounted the 
throne, they readily returned to the ancient supersti- 
tion on being secured in their lands. It certainly ill 
becomes the descendants of these men to looii with 
contempt on the possessors of estates acquired by 
ability, prudence, and honourable diligence. 

In order to fulfil some part of the magnificent prom- 
ises which had been made, Henry erected and slen- 
derly endowed five new bishoprics. He completed 
Christ Church College at Oxford, and King's College 
at Cambridge, where he also founded Trinity College. 
A few grammar schools and hospitals were also estab- 
lished, and some money was laid out in public works. 

When the intelligence of the suppression of the 
monasteries reached the Vatican, it excited the most 
unbounded indignation. Proscriptive publications 
without number appeared at Rome, in which the im- 
piety of the King of England was described as sur- 
passing that of all the tyrants in history, sacred or 
profane : Julian alone was a parallel, as, like him, he 
was learned, and a persecutor of the church he had 
left. Finally, the bull which had been prepared three 
years before, but had only been held over him in ter- 
rorem, was now issued, and all hopes of an accommo- 
dation were thus terminated. 

One of the most active agents in the cause of the 
papacy at this time was a member of the blood-royal 
of England. Reginald Pole was the fourth son of 
Margaret countess of Salisbury, the daughter of 
George duke of Clarence, and was, therefore, first 
cousin of Henry's mother. Henry had always treat- 
ed this his young kinsman with the greatest affec- 
tion ; and, as he designed to enter the church, and 
had a turn for literature, he supplied him with ample 
means for pursuing his studies, both at home and at 
Padua. In the affair of the divorce, Pole's opinion 
was adverse to the king's wishes ; and he had the 
manliness, in spite of the entreaties of his family to 
the contrary, to state to him, both orally and in wri- 
ting, his reasons against it. This Henry took in good 
part; and, at his request, allowed him to return to 



1540.] REGINALD POLE. 221 

Padua. He was residing there when Henry was de- 
clared to be the supreme head of the EngUsh Church ; 
the books which Gardiner and Sampson wrote on this 
occasion were transmitted to him ; and Pole, who was 
now wholly devoted to the papacy, determined to an- 
swer them. Early in the following year he composed 
his work " Pro Ecclesiasticae Unitatis Defensione," 
addressed to his benefactor, and assailing him with 
the utmost virulence. This work was communica- 
ted, as he wrote it, to two of his Italian friends and 
to the pope, by whose permission it was read by some 
other persons. His friends advised him, in vain, to 
soften the personalities. All this time, we may ob- 
serve, Pole was receiving his pension from his royal 
kinsman, and continued making professions of his in- 
tentions to serve him. In May of the next year he 
sent his book to Henry, by whom it was received just 
four days after his murder of Anne Boleyn. The king 
contented himself with directing his prelates to draw 
up a refutation of the assertions which it set forth. A 
second edition of Gardiner's book, " De Vera Obedi- 
entia," was now published ; to which Bonner affixed 
a preface, in which the pope was abused in the most 
virulent terms. At the same time, the king invited 
Pole to come over to explain some parts of his book ; 
but he was not to be thus caught, and was therefore 
deprived of his dignities and pensions. 

In the winter Pole went to Rome by the invitation 
of the pope, who offered him a cardinal's hat :* this 
honour, however, he declined, and his objections sat- 
isfied the pontiff. But the imperial party had partic- 
ular reasons for wishing him to be invested with this 
dignity ; the papal orders, which, on his own princi- 

* The peculiar kind of hat worn by the cardinals, indicative of 
their office. These ecclesiastical dignitaries constitute what is 
styled the " Sacred College," are the advisers of the pope, and, in 
subordination to him, the appointed governors of the Romish 
Church. Whenever the papal chair is vacated, they elect from 
their own body one to fill it. They are seventy in number, viz., 
six bishops, fifty priests, and seventeen deacons, and are chosen 
by the pope. - Am. Ed. 

T2 



222 HENRY VIII. [1540. 

pies, he could not disobey, were accordingly sent to 
him ; and on the 22d of December, 1537, he, with an 
unwilling heart, became a member of the " Sacred 
College." 

There is something remarkable in Pole's strong re- 
pugnance to accept the highest dignity the pontiff 
could bestow, and in the efforts of the imperial minis- 
ters to have it forced upon him. Is it not possible 
that Pole secretly aspired to the hand of the Princess 
Mary and the throne of England 1 The princess had 
been committed to the care of his mother, the Count- 
ess of Salisbury; and Pole's friend and biographer, 
BeccateUi, tells us that Queen Catharine, on whose 
conscience the murder of the innocent Earl of War- 
wick (which had been committed to secure the suc- 
cession to her offspring) weighed heavily, had project- 
ed with the countess, Warwick's sister, that, by way 
of reparation, one of her sons should marry the prin- 
cess, and thus obtain the throne. Pole was one of 
the youngest of these sons ; and he was, moreover, 
Mary's favourite. The same biographer actually as- 
signs this as a reason why the imperial ministers were 
so eager to have him made a cardinal. One of the 
charges preferred against his relations in 1539, was 
that of having devised to " maintain, promote, and ad- 
vance" him, and to deprive the king. In 1540, Dami- 
ano a Goes, writing to Pole, says of him, " Whom, if 
there be any truth in my auguries, we shall yet see 
King of England;" and Pole, in his reply, does not 
absolutely reject the augury. Finally, when Mary 
mounted the throne, her marriage with Pole was in 
contemplation, and might have taken place but for his 
advanced age and infirmities, and the arts of the em- 
peror.* 

Be this, however, as it may, Pole was now a mem- 
ber of the " sacred college ;" and when the intelli- 
gence of the risings in England had reached the Vati- 
can, the office of legate beyond the Alps was confer- 
red on him, and he was directed to proceed to Flan- 

* See Turner's History of England, x., 420. 



1540.] REGINALD POLE. 223 

ders, to be at hand to foment the rebellion. On reach- 
ing Lyons he heard of its suppression, and of his be- 
ing proclaimed a traitor by Henry, who had set a re- 
ward of 50,000 crowns on his head. Although the 
King of France would not surrender him, he would 
not admit him to his presence ; the queen-regent of 
the Netherlands acted in a similar manner ; and he 
was obliged to fix his abode at Liege, whence, after a 
stay of three months, he returned to Rome : for, 
though he had opened communications with the dis- 
affected, he found that nothing could be accomplished. 
He now remained for a year in Italy ; and, at the 
close of it, in November, 1538, he was sent as legate 
to Spain, to try to excite the emperor to a crusade 
against his country. He, however, met with but a 
cool reception, and seems to have come to the con- 
clusion that the papacy had, in reahty, more to ap- 
prehend from Charles than from Henry. 

The cardinal, being out of Henry's reach, might 
pursue his treasonable course in safety, but he there- 
by drew the monarch's vengeance on his family. 
During his mission to Spain, viz., on the 3d of No- 
vember, his brother Lord Montague, Courtenay mar- 
quis of Exeter, and Sir Edward Neville, were commit- 
ted to the Tower on a charge of treason. The last 
day of the year, the two peers were arraigned on a 
charge of devising to maintain and advance one Regi- 
nald Pole, the king's enemy, beyond the seas, and to 
deprive the king of his royal state and dignity. The 
chief witness against them was Sir Geoffrey Pole ; 
who, having been arrested on some other charge, had 
attempted suicide ; and, having failed in his attempt, 
in remorse (probably the result of weakness caused 
by loss of blood) had revealed the treason of his fam- 
ily. They were found guilty and executed ; as, three 
days after, were also Neville, two priests, and a sai- 
lor. Sir Geoffrey was tried and convicted with these 
last ; but his life was spared on account of his servi- 
ces, and he was pardoned in the next reign. About 
three months later. Sir Nicholas Carew, master of the 
horse, was convicted and executed as an accomplice 



224 HENRY VIII. [1538. 

of the marquis. Though conviction in this reign is no 
certain proof of guilt, there seems to be little reason 
to doubt of the reality of this conspiracy.* 



CHAPTER V. 

HENRY VIII. (continued). 

1538-1547. 

Burning of Lambert. — Act of Six Articles. — King's Marriage with 
Anne of Cleves. — His Divorce. — Execution of Cromwell. — 
Catharine Howard. — War with France and Scotland.— Con- 
spiracy against Cranmer. — Anne Askew.— Attempt to injure the 
Queeii.— Execution of Lord Surrey.— Death of the King.— His 
Character. 

While Henry v^^as thus warring v^^ith the papacy on 
points of authority, he was strenuous in maintaining 
its most objectionable doctrines, and another victim 
was at this time offered to that of the real presence. 
This was a man named Lambert, who had adopted 
the view of Zuinglius, that the eucharist was merely 
commemorative. Hearing one day, in 1538, Dr. Tay- 
lor preach on the subject of transubstantiation, he 
went to him and offered to argue the matter. Tay- 
lor, pleading want of leisure, desired him to put his 
thoughts in writing. Lambert was so incautious as 
to do so. Taylor showed the paper to Dr. Barnes, 
who, like himself, held the reformed opinions, but still 
believed in the real presence ; and Barnes advised 
him to proceed against Lambert for heresy in the 
archiepiscopal court. On the trial Lambert appealed 
to the king, to whom Gardiner suggested that this 
was a good opportunity for clearing himself from the 

* Sir .Tames Mackintosh discredits the reality of this conspira 
cy, and considers it highly improbable that Exeter should nave 
conspired to elevate Pole to the throne of England, when his own 
title to that dignity was the best of the two. — Am. Ed. 



1539.] 



BURNING OF LAMBERT. 225 



charge of encouraging heresy. Westminster Hall 
was accordingly prepared ; and the nobles were sum- 
moned from all parts. The king took his seat, with 
the bishops on his right and the temporal peers on 
his left : the hall was filled with spectators ; and the 
prisoner came, surrounded by armed men. Bishop 
Sampson having made a speech, the king put a few 
questions to the prisoner in a haughty tone. Cran- 
mer, Gardiner, Tunstall, Stokesly, and six other bish- 
ops then argued successively with him. He became 
exhausted : the king demanded of him whether he 
would live or die ; and he said he threw himself wholly 
on the royal mercy. Henry replied that he had no 
mercy for heretics. Lambert persisted in his opinion , 
and Cromwell, by the royal order, read the sentence of 
death.* He was burned on the 20th of November, at 
Smithfield, and two Dutch Anabaptists suffered also 
in the same place about this time. 

It was, as we may have observed, the practice of 
Henry to carry all his measures under the form of 
law ; and, indeed, he found parhaments so very com- 
phant, that it would have been mere folly and wanton- 
ness in him to have pursued any other course. The 
parliament met on the 28th of April, 1539 ; and its 
acts perfectly accorded with the royal wishes. 

An act of attainder against the Marquis of Exeter, 
and those executed with him, was easily obtained ; 
but the king wished to extend his vengeance to the 
whole of the cardinal's family. Cromwell was there- 
fore directed to ask the judges whether a person 
might not be attainted without trial or confession. 

* " It was wonderful," writes Cromwell, " to see how prince- 
ly, with how excellent gravity and inestimable majesty, his high- 
ness exercised there the very office of supreme head of the Church 
of England ; how benignly his grace assayed to convert the mis- 
erable man ; how strong and manifest reasons his highness alleged 
against him. I wish the princes and potentates of Europe to have 
had a meet place to have seen it."— Collier, li., 152. f 

t To what depths of degradation men are capable of descending— thus 
to load this remorseless, sanguinary tyrant with such fulsome, lying flat- 
tery l—Am. Ed. 



226 HENRY VIII. [1539. 

They replied that, though such a thing might be done 
by the lower courts, a sentence passed by the high 
court of parliament would be good in law. This was 
enough: Pole's mother the venerable Countess of 
Salisbury, his nephew the son of Lord Montague, the 
Marchioness of Exeter, Sir Adrian Fortescue, and Sir 
Thomas Dingley, were all included in a bill of attain- 
der, and, as it would seem, without any proof ; yet 
the two knights were executed, while the countess 
was reprieved, and the marchioness only was par- 
doned. 

An act was passed confirming the surrender of the 
monasteries. By another, a formal surrender of the 
national liberties was made ; for the legislature gave 
to the king's proclamation the force of statutes of 
parliament. 

But the great measure of this parliament was that 
respecting religious doctrines. As soon as it met, a 
commission was appointed, consisting of Cromwell, 
the two archbishops, and the bishops of Durham, Bath, 
Ely, Bangor, Carlisle, and Worcester, to prepare such 
articles of doctrine as might put an end to religious 
controversy. But, since the two parties were nearly 
equal in the committee, there was no rational chance 
of their agreement. On the 16th of May, therefore, 
the Duke of Norfolk proposed six questions to the 
house, as necessary to be previously determined. 
Cranmer and his friends argued them vigorously on 
the reformed side ; while the opposite view was sup- 
ported by Lee, Tunstall, and the Romish party. On 
the second day Henry himself came down to the 
house ; and his presence, aided probably by his words, 
silenced all opposition. Parliament was prorogued 
on the 24th ; and, when it met again on the SO-th, each 
party was required, in the king's name, to prepare a 
bill against the following Sunday. That of the Ro- 
mish party received the royal approbation ; the lords 
Avere directed to discuss it ; and the Act of the Six 
Articles, "the bloody statute," or "whip with six 
strings," as it was commonly called, was passed on 
the 10th of June. 



1539.] " WHIP WITH SIX strings/' 227 

These articles were as folloAvs : 1. The natural 
body of Christ is present in the eucharist under the 
forms, but without the substance, of bread and wine ; 
2. Communion in both kinds is not necessary; 3. 
Priests may not marry ; 4. Vows of chastity are to 
be kept ; 5. Private masses should be retained ; fi. 
Auricular confession is expedient and necessary. 
The penalty of opposing the first was death without 
mercy,* and the violation of the others was to be 
punished as felony. " Such," says Lingard, " were 
the enactments of this severe and barbarous statute." 
Latimer and Shaxton immediately resigned their 
sees, and were both committed to the Tower. Num- 
bers of other clergymen were cast into prison for 
having spoken against the Romish doctrines. But it 
is extraordinary to remark Henry's steadiness to Cran- 
mer : he assured him of his constant friendship ; and, 
at his desire, the lords of parliament were entertained 
by him at Lambeth. The primate, however, bent be- 
fore the storm, and sent his wife and children to Ger- 
many. 

Henry was now in the second year of his widow- 
hood ; but, during the whole of this time, he had been 
engaged in matrimonial treaties. The first was with 
the emperor, for his niece, the Duchess-dowager of 
Milan, daughter of the King of Denmark ; but this was 
broken off, and Henry turned his views to France. It 
has generally been observed, that in love people affect 
their opposites ; but in Henry's eyes it seemed fitting 
that his wife shoud be of large dimensions, to suit his 
own corpulence. He fixed his fancy on the Duchess- 
dowager of Longueville, daughter of the Duke of 
Guise; but she was already contracted to the King of 
Scots ; and Francis, refusing, at Henry's solicitation, 
to break off the match, sent her to Scotland. He of- 
fered him, however, Mary of Bourbon, daughter of the 
Duke of Vendome ; but, as Henry heard that the Scot- 

* No atonement whatever, not even the most humble and sin- 
cere recantation, was admitted for the denial of this article ; an 
instance of barbarous severity unparalleled by anything even ia 
the bloodstained records of the Inquisition.— J.m. Ed. 



228 HENRY VIII. [1540. 

tish king had refused her, he would not listen to this 
proposal. Francis then offered him his choice of the 
sisters of the Queen of Scots, who fully equalled her 
in size. Henry proposed that they should have a 
conference at Calais, to wiiich Francis should bring 
the finest ladies of his court ; but the delicacy of the 
French monarch would not allow him to treat the 
ladies of France as he said men treated nags at si, 
fair, where they were trotted out, that the purchaser 
might choose. The negotiations, therefore, were bro- 
ken off. 

Henry now turned his thoughts to an alliance with 
one of the Protestant princes of Germany ; and Crom- 
well proposed to him Anne, daughter of the Duke of 
Cleves. A picture of her by Hans Holbein having 
satisfied him of her beauty, he made his proposals, 
which were accepted ; and the princess was sent over 
to England. She landed on the last day of the year 
at Dover. On Newyear's day, 1540, she reached 
Rochester, whither the king's impatience had brought 
him to meet her. Great, however, was his conster- 
nation when he beheld her ! Tall she was, and large 
also ; but her features were coarse, her manners un- 
graceful, and she spoke only her native German. As 
he ha,d viewed her unseen, he had time to compose 
himself before he was announced. She knelt ; and he 
raised her and kissed her cheek ; but he could not 
prevail on himself to deliver the presents which he 
had brought. He retired to consult with his friends, 
to whom he swore that " they had brought him a 
great Flanders mare." Next morning he rode back 
in melancholy mood to Greenwich. He there di- 
rected Cromwell to devise some mode of breaking off 
the marriage ; but none could be found ; and there 
was danger of offending the Protestant princes. 
" There is no remedy, then," said the king, in a sor 
rowfal tone ; " I must put my neck into the yoke." 
The marriage ceremony was performed by Cranmer 
on the 6th of January ; but the bride could make no 
progress in gaining the affections of her capricious 
lord. 



1540.] ARREST OP CROMWELL. 229 

Within his heart Henry had determined on divor- 
cing his queen and destroying Cromwell, whom he re- 
garded as the author of his calamity. Yet never, ap- 
parently, was Cromwell higher in his favour. He had 
made him knight of the garter, and lord great cham- 
berlain : an office hereditary in the family of Vere, 
earls of Oxford ; and on the 14th of April, the second 
day after the meeting of parhament, which Cromwell 
had opened as usual, he received the earldom of Es- 
sex, which had just become extinct, and the estates 
belonging to it. But his enemies were numerous : 
the ancient nobility hated him as an upstart ; the peo- 
ple regarded him as the cause of the high taxation ; 
the Romish party viewed him with abhorrence, on ac- 
count of the dissolution of the monasteries ; and the 
reformers blamed him for suffering the act of the Six 
Articles to pass. It seems, too, that the party op- 
posed to him, and the queen, adopted the same tac- 
tics that had been employed against Catharine and 
Wolsey. At a dinner given to the king by Gardiner, 
one of the company was Catharine Howard, niece of 
the Duke of Norfolk : a young lady small in person, 
and not remarkably handsome, but extremely agree- 
able in manners. She contrasted favourably with the 
coarse Anne of Cleves, and her conquest of the royal 
heart was immediate. The king's hatred for Crom- 
well was thereby augmented ; and, by his directions, 
on the 10th of June the Duke of Norfolk arrested the 
minister at the council-board as a traitor. The ini- 
quitous mode of proceeding by attainder,* which he 
himself had been the instrument of introducing the last 
year, was adopted. He was charged with encroach- 
ing on the royal authority in divers ways ; with hold- 
ing and favouring heretical opinions ; and with de- 
claring that he would fight, even against the king, in 
defence of them. Cranmer alone proved faithful to 
the fallen minister : he wrote to the king in his fa- 
vour, but it availed him naught. The bill was rapidly 

* By this most unjust process, the person accused was tried 
and convicted wholly on ex-parte evidence, vnthout being permit 
ted to make the smallest defence.— ^.m. Ed. 

Vol. n.— U 



230 HENRY VIII. [1540. 

passed through the lords ;* and though in the com- 
mons it met with some opposition, it was finally car- 
ried. 

The great object, the divorce of the queen, was now 
speedily proceeded with. She was sent to Richmond, 
for the benefit of the air as it was pretended ; and, 
while there, on the 25th of June, she was waited on 
by the Duke of Suff'olk, the Earl of Southampton, and 
Sir Thomas Wriothesley, and acquainted with the 
king's intention of divorcing her, on the ground of an 
alleged precontract with the Duke of Lorraine. Apa- 
thetic as she was, she fainted at the intehigence. 
When she recovered, she was prevailed on to consent 
to refer the matter to the clergy, to relinquish the title 
of queen, and, in lieu thereof, to accept that of the 
king's adopted sister. She also consented to write a 
letter to him to this effect, and another to her brother, 
acknowledging the justice of the whole proceeding ; 
and she farther engaged to show all the letters she 
might receive from her family. 

In the mean time, a very pretty farce was enacted 
by the legislature. A member of the upper house 
rose, and, having lamented the hard fate of his ma- 
jesty, in being bound to a wife who had been affianced 
to another, and the dishonour thereby brought on him 
and the country, moved that he should be petitioned 
to refer his case to the consideration of the clergy. 
The motion was agreed to ; the commons were equally 
alive to the interests of the king and nation ; the joint 
address Avas most graciously received ; the case was 
submitted to the convocationf on the 5th of July; 
Gardiner expatiated on the causes which urged the 

* It is a subject of regret to find the name of Cranmer in the 
list of those who voted for the attainder. 

t A convocation was an assembly of the clergy, called together 
to deliberate on such matters as might be submitted to them of an 
ecclesiastical nature. These assemblies were held during the 
sitting of parliament ; and, like that body, were divided into an 
upper and lower house, meeting and acting separately ; the former 
being composed of the archbishops and bishops, and the latter of 
delegates representing the other clerical orders. They have been 
for a length of time in disuse in England.— ^wi. Ed 



1540.] EXECUTION OF CROMWELL. 231 

king to seek their interference ; and a committee, 
composed of the two archbishops, the bishops of 
London, Durham, Winchester, and Worcester, and 
seven of the inferior clergy, was appointed to receive 
and report on the evidence. The marriage was de- 
clared to be null and void, inasmuch as the precon- 
tract, it was alleged, had not been satisfactorily ex- 
plained ; as the king did not and could not consum- 
mate it ; as it would be for the public good were he to 
marry again, &c. ; in short, inasmuch as Henry dis- 
liked his wife, and wanted to marry another, and as 
his divines were most obsequious to his wishes. 
Parliament confirmed this sentence, and made it high 
treason to question it. The palace of Richmond and 
JC3000 ($14,400) a year, with precedence of all save 
the queen and the king's children, consoled Anne for 
the loss of a capricious husband. She had spirit 
enough to refuse to return to Germany ; and she died 
about sixteen years after this, in the reign of Queen 
Mary. 

Henry had never been known to forgive ; and Nor- 
folk and the other enemies of Cromwell were now 
high in his favour. It was therefore in vain that the 
fallen favourite wrote in such piteous terms, imploring 
mercy, as even drew tears from the despot's eyes : 
no mercy was in store for him. The warrant for his 
execution was sent ; and, on the 28th of July, he was 
beheaded on Tower Hill, Aware of the king's tem- 
per, and actuated by affection for his son, he acted 
like Anne Boleyn, and made no assertion of his inno- 
cence. He said he was by law condemned to die, 
and thanked God for bringing him to that death for his 
offences. He acknowledged his sins against God, and 
his offences against his prince, who had raised him 
from a base degree. He died, he said, in the Catholic 
faith, not doubting of any article of faith, or of any 
sacrament of the church ; and he had not been a sup- 
porter of those who held ill opinions, but had been 
seduced, and now died in the Catholic faith ;* and he 

* " Meaning, probably," says Lingard, " that faith which was 
now established by law." 



232 HENRY VIII. [1541. 

desired those present to pray for the king, the prince, 
and himself. He then prayed for the remission of 
his sins, and admittance into heaven ; and, giving the 
sign, his head was cut off in a bunghng, barbarous 
manner. 

Two days only had elapsed after the death of 
Cromwell, when the rekindhng of the fires of Smith- 
field taught the reformers their loss in him. The 
victims were Dr. Barnes, and two clergymen named 
Jerome and Gerard ; their offence was preaching the 
doctrine of justification by faith only ; and their per- 
secutor was Gardiner. As they could not be brought 
within the Six Articles, the convenient mode of at- 
tainder was employed, and they were sentenced to be 
burned as heretics. At the same time, three of the 
other party, Abel, Power, and Featherstone, were at- 
tainted for denying the supremacy. To prove the 
king's thorough impartiality, they were drawn on hur- 
dles, one of either party on each hurdle, to the place 
of execution, where the Reformers w-ere burned as 
heretics, and the Romanists hanged and quartered as 
traitors. 

On the 8th of August Catharine Howard was intro- 
duced at court as queen, and the Romish party now 
viewed their triumph as complete ; for Catharine, ac- 
cording to the lords of the council, had entirely won 
the king's heart by " a notable appearance of honour, 
cleanness, and maidenly behaviour." 

In the following month of April, 1541, the people 
of the northern counties were again in arms against 
the government. The cause was probably rehgion, 
and the leader was Sir John Neville ; but the insur- 
rection was speedily suppressed, and Neville and some 
others were executed at York. Whether it were that 
her son, the cardinal, had instigated it, or that she had 
herself given some offence, or from mere Avantonness 
of barbarity, Henry, on the 27th of May, gave orders 
for the execution of the Countess of Salisbury. The 
venerable matron of seventy-two years, when placed 
on the scaffold, refused to lay her head on the block, 
saying, " So should traitors do, and I am none :" she 



1541.] CATHARINE HOWARD. 233 

added, that, if the executioner would have her head, 
he must take it by force. When held down, she still 
kept moving it, and he was thus, says Herbert, " con- 
strained to fetch it off slovenly." 

When the insurrection in the north was quelled, 
Henry made a progress thither in person, in order to 
quiet the minds of the people. He had also in view 
a personal meeting with his nephew, the King of Scots, 
in whose realm the Reformation had likewise com- 
menced, and whom he was urging to follow his exam- 
ple in seizing the property of the church. But his 
queen and the clergy had too much influence over the 
mind of James ; and he sent to excuse himself to his 
royal uncle, who was now at York. Henry, breath- 
ing vengeance, returned to London, where a trial he 
little anticipated now awaited him. 

On Allhallows day, the king, it is said, "gave most 
hearty thanks for the good hfe he led, and trusted to 
lead, with his wife ;" and even requested his confessor, 
the Bishop of London, to join with him in prayer and 
thanksgiving. The next day, after mass, Cranmer 
put into his hand a written statement of charges 
against his supposed immaculate consort. 

It seems that, while the king was in the north, a 
man named Lascelles had waited on the primate, and 
told him that, having been down to Sussex to see his 
sister (formerly in the service of the old Duchess of 
Norfolk, who had brought the queen up), he had ad- 
vised her to apply for the situation of one of her wom- 
en ; but she replied that she would not, as the queen 
was " of light living and conditions." She then went 
on to state certain particulars with regard to one 
Francis Derham, and a man named Mannock, former- 
ly servants of the duchess, which deeply imphcated 
the queen's character. The archbishop, on hearing 
this, was in great perplexity ; and he deemed it his 
wisest course to communicate it to the Chancellor 
Audley and the Earl of Hertford; and these, after 
maturely weighing the matter, decided that he should 
inform the king. Henry was thunderstruck at the 
information, which he asserted was forged. He,how- 
U2 



234 HENRY VIII. [1542. 

ever, summoned the lord privy seal, the lord admiral, 
Sir Anthony Brown, and Sir Thomas Wriothesley, 
and directed that inquiry should be made. 

The lord privy seal examined Lascelles; and, when 
he was found to persist in his statement, the same 
nobleman went into Sussex, under pretence of hunt- 
ing, and thus contrived to have an interview with 
Lascelles' sister, who confirmed the statement of her 
brother. Wriothesley, in the mean time, arrested the 
serving-men ; and they both confessed to the charges 
of criminahty alleged against them. When this was 
all laid before the king, his rugged nature gave way ; 
and, after a long silence, he burst into a copious flood 
of tears. The primate, the chancellor, the Duke of 
Norfolk, the lord-chamberlain, and the Bishop of 
Winchester, were sent to examine the queen. She at 
first stoutly denied everything ; but, being pressed by 
the weight of evidence, she made that night a full 
confession to the primate, and put her subscription to 
it. She acknowledged her errors before marriage, 
but asserted that she had been faithful to the king. 
This latter, however, seems to have been disproved 
by certain discoveries which were made in relation to 
Derham, an individual named Culpepper, and Lady 
Rochfort. 

Culpepper and Derham, it is said, both pleaded 
guilty when they were arraigned ; the former was be- 
headed on the 30th of November, and the latter hanged 
on the 10th of the following month. The old Duchess 
of Norfolk, Lord William Howard the queen's uncle, 
his wife, and several other persons, were charged 
with misprision of treason for not revealing her guilt, 
and were sentenced to imprisonment for life. When 
the parliament met in January, 1542, bills of attainder 
against the queen, Lady Rochfort, and all the above- 
named persons, were rapidly passed. On the 13th of 
February, the queen and Lady Rochfort were behead- 
ed within the Tower. They expressed great contri- 
tion for their sins, but the queen persisted in affirming 
that she had never been faithless to her husband. 
Neither, however, was much pitied. It was well re- 



1542.] DEATH OF JAMES OF SCOTLAND. 235 

membered that Lady Rochfort had been a principal 
agent in the murder of her husband, and of his sister, 
Anne Boleyn. 

In the convocation this year, great complaints were 
made by the Romish party of the inaccuracy of Tin- 
dale's and other translations of the Bible ; and a new 
version was projected, in which Gardiner artfully pro- 
posed to retain about one hundred Latin words, the 
true meaning and force of which, he said, the EngUsh 
language was unable to express. Cranmer, however, 
saw through the artifice, and the project fell to the 
ground. 

Many years had elapsed since the English nation 
had been engaged in foreign war ; but hostilities 
were now about to commence with both Scotland 
and France. In consequence of the insult offered him, 
as he conceived, by his nephew of Scotland, Henry 
ordered the Duke of Norfolk to raise an army and to 
invade that kingdom. The duke crossed the Tweed 
with twenty thousand men, and advanced along it to 
Kelso; but he recrossed the river at that place, and 
returned to England. King James, who had assem- 
bled an army, proposed to his nobles an inroad into 
England : they, however, refused ; and a body of ten 
thousand men, whom he sent into England by Solway 
Frith, took panic and fled at the appearance of a party 
of but five hundred English, leaving several men of 
rank captives in their hands. James fell sink from 
chagrin, and died just as he had learned the birth of 
his first child, a daughter. Henry, on hearing of this 
event, proposed to his prisoners and some other Scot- 
tish nobles a match between his son Edward and the 
infant princess, and he gave them their liberty on con- 
dition of their aiding him to effect it. But Beaton, 
archbishop of St. Andrews, whom the pope had made 
a cardinal, had forged a will, by which the king left 
the regency to himself and three other noblemen du- 
ring the minority. He was the head of the Romish 
■party, and the queen-dowager joined interest with 
him. On the other hand, the Earl of Arran was the 
nearest akin to the young queen, and he was support- 



236 HENRY VIII. [1543-4. 

ed by the Reformers. The cardinaVs forgery being 
suspected, he was deprived of the regency and put 
into confinement ; but he soon obtained his hberty ; 
and, by appeahng to the national and rehgious preju- 
dices of the people, he turned them completely against 
the English match, and, in 1543, triumphed over his 
rival. 

As the King of France had favoured the party hos- 
tile to his interests in Scotland, Henry now listened 
to the overtures of the emperor, and entered into a 
league with him against France. The Romish party 
in England were much elated ; but the Reformers 
gained, perhaps, a more than countervailing advantage 
in the king's marriage, which took place on the 12th 
of July, with Catharine Parr, the widow of Lord Lati- 
mer, who inclined to the new opinions. 

Henry crossed the sea on the 14th of July of the 
following year, 1544, with his principal nobility, and 
a gallant army of thirty thousand men. He was join- 
ed by fifteen thousand Imperialists ; but, instead of 
marching directly to Paris, as good policy and the de- 
sires of his ally required, he laid siege to Boulogne 
and Montreal, because Charles had taken some towns 
and was besieging St. Dizier. The King of France, 
in alarm, made proposals of peace to the emperor, 
which were at once accepted ; and Henry, now, as 
ever, the dupe of his ally, having taken and garrison- 
ed Boulogne, raised the siege of Montreal, and on the 
30th of September returned home. The war with 
France and Scotland was continued through the fol- 
lowing year, but in a languid manner, and it was ter- 
minated by a peace in 1546.* 

* The English and Scots had long entertained the most invet- 
erate national hatred towards each other, and their wars were of 
the most ferocious and devastating character. During the contest 
here spoken of, the Earl of Hertford was sent on a hostile expedi- 
tion into Scotland ; and we extract the following, that the reader 
may judge of the bitterness of that animosity which could prompt 
to such deliberate and monstrous cruelty : " The Lords of the 
Council, to the Earl of Hertford, Lieutenant in Scotland, April 10, 
1544. — You are to put all to fire and sword, burn Edinburgh town, 
60 used and defaced, that when you have gotten what you can of 



1543-1545.] CRANMER ACCUSED. 237 

In the year 1543 a new exposition of faith and mor- 
als was put forth, under the title of " A Necessary 
Doctrine and Erudicion for any Christian Man," but it 
was commonly called " The King's Book." Like the 
" Institution" on which it was founded, it was of a 
motley character ; with too much of the old faith to 
content the Reformers, and too much of the new to 
please the Romanists. In the next parhament, in 
1544, Cranmer succeeded in obtaining a mitigation of 
the provisions of the " Act of Six Articles." 

The cause of the Reformers lost in 1545 two of its 
most powerful supporters, in the persons of the Duke 
of Suffolk, the king's brother-in-law, and the Lord- 
chancellor Audeley, who both died in this year ; and 
Audeley's successor, Wriothesley (now ennobled), 
sided strongly with the opposite party. It was not 
long before an attempt was made to ruin Cranmer. 
The king was informed " that the primate, with his 
learned men, had so infected the whole realm with 
unsavoury doctrine, as to fill all places with abomina- 
ble heretics," and that the throne was in danger. 
Henry asked how it were best to proceed, and was 

it, it may remain for ever a perpetual memory of the vengeance of 
God lightened upon it for their falshood and disloyalty. Sack all 
the houses, and as many towns and villages about Edinburgh as 
ye may conveniently. Sack Leith, and subvert it, and all the rest, 
putting man, woman, and child to fire and sword, without excep- 
tion, when any resistance shall be made against you ; and this done, 
pass over to the Fifeland, and extend like extremities and destruc- 
tion to all towns and villages whereunto you may reach conve- 
niently ; not forgetting, among all the rest, so to spoil and turn up 
side down the cardinal's town of St. Andrews, that the upper sort 
may be the nether, and not one stoke stand upon another, sparing 
no creature alive within the same ; especially such as either in 
friendship or blood be allied unto the cardinal, etc." The histo- 
rian adds, that " these barbarous orders seem to have been execu- 
ted with a rigorous and unfeeling exactness."— See Robertson's 
History of Scotland, p. 49, Harpers' edition. 

It seems scarcely credible that orders like these could, less than 
three centuries ago, have emanated from the government of a na- 
tion now among the most highly improved and humane of Chris- 
tendom ; and it is from such facts that we may most readily es- 
timate the immense advance which, within a comparatively short 
period, has been made in civilization. — Am. Ed. 



238 HENRY VIII. [1545. 

advised to commit him at once to the Tower. He ob- 
jected to this as a harsh measure ; but was assured 
that the primate was so unpopular, that charges in 
abundance would be brought against him when he 
should be in confinement. He at length consented 
that the prelate should be summoned next day before 
the council, and committed if they deemed it advisa- 
ble. 

Before midnight the king sent Sir Anthony Denny 
to Lambeth, to summon the primate to his presence. 
Cranmer, who was in bed, rose, and came to White- 
hall. Hemy told him what he had done : Cranmer 
declared himself indifferent about the committal, as he 
could easily clear himself. " Oh Lord !" cried the 
king, " what fond simplicity have you, so to permit 
yourself to be imprisoned that every enemy of yours 
may take advantage against you 1 Do you not know 
that, when they have you once in prison, three or four 
false knaves will soon be procured to witness against 
you and condemn you !" He then went on to tell him 
that he had taken better measures for his safety ; de- 
sired him to claim his right, as a privy councillor, of 
being confronted with his accusers ; and, if that should 
be refused, to produce the ring which he then gave him, 
and appeal to him. 

Cranmer returned home, and the next morning at 
eight o'clock he was summoned to appear before the 
council. When he came, he was obliged to remain 
sitting in the anteroom among the servants. At 
length he was brought before the board, and inform- 
ed of the charges against him, and his demand to 
be confronted with his accusers was at once refused. 
" I am sorry, my lords," said he, " that you drive me 
to such a step ; but, seeing myself likely to obtain no 
fair usage from you, I must appeal to his majesty." 
He then produced the ring : they gazed on it and on 
each other for some time in silence ; and at length 
Lord Russel said with an oath, " Did I not tell you, 
my lords, what would come of this affair ? I knew 
right well that the king would never permit my Lord 
of Canterbury to be imprisoned, unless it were for 



1545.] henry's last parliament. 239 

high treason." They then took the ring and papers 
to the king, who rated them well for their treatment 
of the primate. " I would have you to know," said he 
in conclusion, " that I account my Lord of Canterbury 
as faithful a man towards me as was ever prelate in this 
realm, and one to whom I am many ways beholden 
by the faith I owe to God." The Duke of Norfolk re- 
plied that their only object had been to give the pri- 
mate an opportunity of refuting the charges made 
against him. " I pray you," said the king, " use not 
my friends so. I perceive now, well enough, how the 
world goeth among you." At the royal command 
they all then shook hands with the placable primate ; 
and, a few days after, were entertained by him at 
Lambeth. 

Shortly after, at Cranmer's desire, the king sup- 
pressed some popular superstitions : such as ringing 
bells and keeping watch the whole night before All- 
hallows' day ; veiling the cross and the images in 
churches through Lent, unveiling them on Palm Sun- 
day, and kneehng before the cross on that day. But 
the king himself went still farther, and forbade the 
practice of creeping to the cross and adoring it. 

The king's last parhament met on the 23d of No- 
vember, and its chief business was to relieve his pe- 
cuniary difficulties. It granted large subsidies, and 
suppressed all the hospitals and other charitable found- 
ations, transferring their revenues to the king. It 
even went so far as to empower him to seize those of 
the universities, he making a solemn promise " that 
all shall be done to the glory of God and common 
profit to the realm." It farther legalized all the trans- 
fers of property which the church dignitaries had 
been forced to make to the crown. The king then 
dissolved the parliament on the 24th of December. 
He made, on this occasion, a speech, which he con- 
cluded by complaining of the religious dissensions 
which prevailed. Of the clergy he said that they did 
nothing but rail at each other, while the laity cen- 
sured the conduct of the clergy, and debated Scripture 
in alehouses and taverns. He exhorted both parties 



240 HENRY VIII. [1546. 

to give over calling one another ill names, and to live 
in peace and charity. 

The next year, 1546, showed how well the king's 
advice was attended to ; for the flames of Smithfield 
blazed once more. The principal victim was a lady 
named Anne Askew, daughter of a knight of Lincoln- 
shire. She had been married to a gentleman named 
Kyme, to whom she bore two children ; but, having 
adopted the reformed sentiments, her husband, a zeal- 
ous papist, turned her out of doors. She resumed 
her maiden name, and came to London in hopes of 
obtaining a divorce. Here she transgressed the Six 
Articles ; and she was also suspected of conveying 
religious books to the queen and some ladies at court. 
She was taken before Bonner, bishop of London : a 
recantation was proffered to her to sign, when she 
wrote that she believed " all manner of things contain- 
ed in the faith of the Catholic Church ;" and, though 
this was ambiguous, Bonner was obhged to let her go 
on bail. This year she was again arrested, and exam- 
ined before the council by Gardiner and Wriothesley. 
They could neither move nor refute her; but she was 
sent to Newgate, tried before a jury for heresy, and 
sentenced to die. It was hoped, by means of the 
rack, to get her to impUcate some persons of rank. 
She was accordingly taken to the Tower, and placed 
on that horrid instrument. She bore the torture 
with the utmost firmness, not uttering even a cry. 
The lieutenant, refusing to allow his man to torment 
her any farther, Wriothesley and Rich threw off 
their gowns and worked the instrument themselves.* 
When taken off she fainted, but on her recovering she 
maintained a conversation with them for two hours, 
sitting on the bare ground. She was carried in a chair 
to the stake on the 16th of July; and with her were 
John Lascelles, a gentleman of the royal household, 
Nicholas Belenian, a Shropshire clergyman, and John 
Adams, a poor tailor : all, like Anne Askew, deniers 
of transubstantiation. Wriothesley sent to offer then* 

* The fact of her being racked is denied by Lingard, vi.,353. 



1546.] ATTEMPT TO INJURE THE QUEEN 241 

a pardon if they would recant. " I came not hither/' 
said Anne, " to deny my Lord and Master." The 
others were equally firm, and all were burned. 

It was commonly said at this time of the Bishop of 
Winchester, that " he had bent his bow in order to 
shoot some of the head deer." He had covertly shot 
at Cratimer, and he now openly aimed at the queen. 
Henry, who was grown peevish and irritable from dis- 
ease, was annoyed at her urging him on the subject 
of religion ; and one day, as she left the room, he fret- 
fully noticed it to Gardiner, who was present. The 
artful prelate saw his opportunity, and succeeded in 
prevailing on the king to let articles of accusation be 
drawn up against her. When prepared, they receiv- 
ed the royal approbation ; but, luckily for the queen, 
the paper was dropped (probably by design) by 
the person who was carrying it, and was picked up 
by one of her friends. Her alarm at her danger 
brought on an attack of illness ; the king came to visit 
her ; she expressed her regret at seeing so little of 
him, and her fear of having given him offence. They 
parted on good terms. Next evening she visited the 
king ; he asked her opinion on some points of reli- 
gion, and she modestly replied that the man was the 
woman's natural superior, and her judgment should be 
directed by his. " Not so, by St. Mary," said the 
king : " you are become a doctor, Kate, to instruct us, 
as we take it, and not to be instructed by us." She 
answered him that, in arguing with him, her only ob- 
ject had been to divert his mind and to derive infor- 
mation. " And is it even so, sweetheart V cried he : 
"then perfect friends are we now again. It doth me 
more good to hear these words of thine own mouth, 
than it would have done had I heard the news of a 
hundred thousand pounds fallen unto me." He embra- 
ced and dismissed her ; and, when she was gone, 
highly extolled her to those who were present ; and 
yet the capricious tyrant had been on the point of 
sending her to the Tower, perhaps even to the stake I 

Next day he sent for her to the garden. While 
they were there, the chancellor came with forty men 

Vol. II.— X 



242 HENRY VIII. [1546. 

to arrest her. The king frowned ; the queen retired ; 
the chancellor knelt ; the words " Knave, fool, beast, 
avaunt from my presence !" reached the ears of the 
queen, and she came forward to interpose. "Ah, 
poor soul," said Henry, " tliou little knowest how evil 
he hath deserved this grace at thy hands. Of my 
word, sweetheart, he hath been towards thee an arrant 
knave, and so let him go." Orders were now given 
that Gardiner should appear no more in the royal pres- 
ence ; and the king also struck his name out of the 
list of executors named in his will. 

The days of the monarch were now fast drawing 
to their close. He was become so corpulent and un- 
wieldy that he could only be moved about in a chair, 
and an ulcer in one of his legs was at this time so fe- 
tid as to be hardly endurable by those about him. 
One more act of injustice and cruelty was, however, 
to be perpetrated by him. The head of the Romish 
party and of the ancient nobility was the Duke of Nor- 
folk, a man who had on several occasions done good 
service to the crown ; and his son, the Earl of Sur- 
rey, was the most accomplished nobleman of the age.* 
The Seymours, the uncles of the young prince, may 
be regarded as the chiefs of the reformed party ; and 
there was a jealousy between them and the Howards, 
who despised them as upstarts. Whether it proceed- 
ed from the intrigues of the Seymours, or from the 
king's own caprice or apprehensions, the duke and 
his son were committed to the Tower on a charge of 
high treason. Feebler or more ill-supported charges 
never were made than on this occasion. Surrey's 
principal offences were his having quartered the arms 
of the Confessor with his own, a thing in which he 
was warranted by the heralds ; his having spoken 
contemptuously of the new nobility ; and his having 
two Italians in his service, whom one of the witnesses 
suspected to be spies. Being a commoner, he was 
tried on the 13th of January, 1547, by a jury at Guild- 

* His poems are still read with pleasure. He gave the earliest 
specimens of blank \erse in our language, in his translation of a 
part of the iEneid of Virgil. 



1547.] EXECUTION OF SURREY. 243 

hall, before the chancellor and other commissioners. 
He defended himself with eloquence and spirit ; but 
vain was all defence in this reign. He was condemn- 
ed as a traitor, and six days after was beheaded on 
Tower Hill.* 

The Duke of Norfolk was accused of various trifling 
acts of treason, and every effort was made to get up 
evidence against him. A great part of the misfortune 
of himself and his son originated in family dissension. 
The duchess, who was separated from her husband, 
actuated by jealousy, wrote to the lord privy seal, ac- 
cusing him ; and his daughter, the Duchess of Rich- 
mond, was one of the witnesses against her brother. 
Mrs. Holland, who was supposed to be the duke's mis- 
tress, testified all she could against him. The duke 
was induced to sign a confession of having divulged 
the king's secrets, concealed his son's treason in quar- 
tering the arms of the Confessor, and having himself 
quartered those of England. But all availed not : a 
bill of attainder was hurried through parliament ; the 
royal assent was given by commission on the 27th, 
and he was ordered for execution the next morning. 
Fortunately for Norfolk, the king died in the night, 
and a respite was sent to the Tower. 

The king had gradually been growing worse, but 
his friends feared to apprize him of his danger. At 
length Sir Anthony Denny ventured to inform him of 
his approaching dissolution. He received the intelli- 
gence with apparent calmness, expressing his reliance 
on the merits of the Saviour. Sir Anthony asked if 
he would have any divine to attend him. He said, if 
any, it should be the Archbishop of Canterbury ; but 
" Let me take a httle sleep first," said he, '' and when 
I awake again I shall think more about the matter." 
When he awoke, he directed that Cranmer should be 
brought from Croydon. The prelate came in all 

* At the very time of this most barbarous execution, it is stated 
by Hohngshcfl that the royal murderer was himself lying in the 
agonies of death. What a frightful picture of his ruling passion 
for blood, strong even in the struggles of expiring natuie, does tUa 
present I— Am, Ed. 



244 HENRr VIII. [1547. 

haste, but found him speechless. He desired him to 
give a siga of his faith in the merits of Christ : the 
king pressed his hand and expired.* 

Nothing can be more injudicious than the conduct 
of those Protestant writers who, identifying Henry 
with the Reformation, seem to think themselves 
bound to apologize for, and even justify, the various 
enormities with which his memory is charged. A 
slight knowledge of history will suffice to show that 
the worst instruments are often employed to produce 
the greatest and best results. We may therefore al- 
low Henry to have been a bad man, and yet regard 
the Reformation, of which he was an instrument, as a 
benefit to mankind. It is, on the other hand, weak in 
the Romanists to charge the Reformation with the 
vices of Henry, as it would be in Protestants were 
they to impute to their religion the atrocities of Pope 
Alexander VI. and his children, Caesar and Lucretia 
Borgia. 

Thorough selfishness formed the basis of Henry's 
character.! He never was known to sacrifice an in- 

* The reader cannot but experience a sensible relief in coming 
to the close of a life so revolting to every feeling of justice and 
humanity as that of this monarch. That this bloodstained ty- 
rant should put on the mockery of Christian trust in his dying mo- 
ments, would seem incredible in one less thoroughly and irrecov- 
erably reprobate. Russell, m speaking of the manner of his death, 
remarks, that " his end affords a striking example that composure 
in death is not the inseparable characteristic of a life well spent, 
nor vengeance in this world the universal fate of bloodthirsty ty- 
rants. Happily," he continues, " we know that there is a state 
beyond the grave where all accounts will be settled, and a tribu- 
nal before which every one must answer for the deeds done in the 
flesh ; otherwise we should be apt to conclude, from seeing the 
same things happen to the just and the unjust, to the cruel and 
the merciful, that there was no eye in heaven that regarded the 
actions of man, nor any arm to punish."— Modern Europe, i., 394, 
Harpers' edition. — Am. Ed. 

t See Wolsey's opinion of him (supra, p. 183). He went to dine 
one day with Sir 'V . More at Chelsea. After dinner he walked 
for an hour in the garden with hiin, with his arm round his neck. 
When More's son-in-law, Koper, congratulated him on the favour 
he seemed to be in, " I thank our Lord, son," quoth he, " 1 find his 
grace my very good lord indeed, and i believe he doth as singu- 



1547.] COUNCIL OF REGENCY. 245 

clination to the interest or happiness of another. 
" He spared no man in his anger ;" everything must 
yield to his will. He was rapacious and profuse, vain 
and self-sufficient. At the same time he was courte- 
ous and affable ; and, when in good-humour, had a 
gay, jovial manner highly captivating in a ruler. His 
people remembered the magnificence of his early 
reign, his handsome person, and his skill in martial 
exercises ; and he was popular with them to the very 
last. The constancy of his friendship to Cranmer is 
the most estimable trait in his character ; but the pri- 
mate never had dared to oppose his will. Henry's 
patronage of letters was also highly commendable. 
He was skilful in selecting those whom he employed 
in church and state, and rarely promoted an ineffi- 
cient person. 



CHAPTER VI. 

EDWARD VI.* 

1547-1553. 

The Council— Progress of the Reformation.— Invasion of Scot 
land, and Battle of Pinkey.— Lord Seymour.- Joan Bocher. — 
Risings of the Peasantry. — Fall of Somerset. — Bonner and 
Gardiner.— The Lady Mary.— Trial and Execution of Somer- 
set.— Settlement of the Crown.— Death of the King. 

The new monarch being only in his tenth year, 
Henry had in his Avill nominated a council of sixteen 
persons to administer the government till he should 
have completed his eighteenth year. A second coun- 

larly favour me as any subject within this realm ; howbeit, son 
Roper, I may tell thee I have no cause to be proud thereof; for if 
my head would win him a castle in France, it should not fail to 
go." This was in 1522, in Henry's jovial days. 

* Authorities : Hayward, Godwm, Foxe, Burnet, Strype, the 
ChronicLers, etc. 

X2 



246 EDWARD VI. [1547. 

cil of twelve persons was appointed to aid them in 
cases of difficulty. Hertford and his friends formed a 
majority in the council of regency ; and one of its first 
acts was to invest him with the office of protector of 
the realm and guardian of the king's person. The 
chief, or, rather, sole opponent of this measure, was 
the Chancellor Wriothesley, who, being from his of- 
fice next in rank to the primate, whom he knew to 
have little talent or inclination for public affairs, had 
reckoned that their chief direction would fall to him- 
self. 

The members of the council next proceeded to be- 
stow titles and estates on themselves, Sir Anthony 
Denny, Sir William Paget, and Sir William Hertford, 
having deposed that such was the late king's intention. 
Hertford was created Duke of Somerset ; Essex (the 
queen's brother), Marquis of Northampton ; Lord Lisle, 
Earl of Warwick ; Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton ; 
and Seymour, Rich, Willoughby, and Sheffield, barons 
of the same names. Manors and lordships were to be 
bestowed on them out of the church lands, to enable 
them to support their new dignities. Meantime Som- 
erset and others took to themselves the revenues of 
sundry deaneries and prebends ; and, when they had 
thus provided for themselves, they proceeded to the 
ceremony of the young king's coronation, which was 
performed with the usual magnificence on the 20th of 
February. 

The chief obstacle in the way of Somerset's ambi- 
tion being the chancellor, he was on the watch for a 
pretext to get rid of him, and Southampton's impru- 
dence soon furnished one. In order to be able to de- 
vote himself more exclusively to politics, he had, 
without consulting his colleagues, put the great seal 
into commission, and appointed four lawyers to hear 
and decide causes in chancery. Complaint was made 
to the council ; and the judges, on being consulted, 
declared the act illegal. The chancellor, when sum- 
moned before the council, ably defended himself: still 
he was obliged to surrender the great seal, and to re- 
main a prisoner in his own house till the amount of 



1547.] 



THE REFORMATION. 247 



the fine to be imposed on him should be settled 
Southampton's opposition being thus removed, Som- 
erset proceeded to enlarge his own authority ; and he 
procured letters patent under the great seal (now held 
provisionally by Lord St. John), making him Protec- 
tor, with full regal power. He appointed a council, 
composed of the members of those nominated in the 
late king's will ; but he reserved the power of increas- 
ing their number, and did not bind himself to follow 
their advice. By this plain usurpation Somerset was 
invested with more power than had ever yet been pla- 
ced in the hands of a subject. 

The Protestants, as we shall henceforth style the 
Reformers,* now looked forward to the rapid spread 
of their principles. The young king had been brought 
up in them ; and the protector and the members of the 
council, with the exception of the Bishop of Durham, 
were, from various motives (partly pure and partly 
interested), in favour of them. It was a gi-eat advan- 
tage that Cranmer, to whom the protector much de- 
ferred in these matters, was a man of extreme mod- 
eration and caution. 

Cranmer commenced by petitioning the council, on 
the 7th of February, to restore him to his ecclesiasti- 
cal jurisdiction : for, as he argued, it had proceeded 
from the crown, and therefore had expired with the 
late king. The other bishops were obliged to follow 
his example ; and they were thus brought under obe- 
dience to the council. A royal visitation of all the di- 
oceses in the kingdom was next appointed. The vis- 

* Our author calls the other party, in accommodation to general 
usage, Catholics ; though from their continued adherence to tlie 
discipline, doctrines, and authority of the Church of Kome, we 
might, perhaps more properly, call them Romanists. The term 
Catholic, signifying universal, is applicable to the Church of Christ 
at large— to the whole of that church, as it has existed in all past 
time, as it exists now, and as it shall continue to exist for all 
time to come, throughout the world. To call the Church of 
Rome, therefore, the Catholic Church, is the same as calling it 
the Universal Church, or, in other words, the ONLV Church. Hence 
the manifest impropriety, to say nothing more, of applying the 
term Catholic, in a limited or distinctive sense, to any single de- 
nomination of professing Christians whatever.— -.4ni. Ed. 



248 EDWARD VI. [1547. 

iters received directions to suppress sundry supersti- 
tious practices : such as the sprinkling of beds with 
holy water, using consecrated candles for driving away 
the evil spirits, etc., and to see that the clergy per- 
formed their functions in a decorous and proper man- 
ner. A book of homilies, and Erasmus's paraphrase 
of the New Testament, were to be provided for each 
church ; and one of these homilies (which were most- 
ly drawn up by Cranmer) was to be read on Sundays 
and holydays. Images which had not been objects of 
pilgrimage were to be retained, and every precaution 
was taken to shock the prejudices of the people as 
little as possible. To these innovations Bonner made 
some opposition at first, but he afterward submitted. 
Gardiner, a man of more firmness and authority, re- 
sisted them vigorously, for which he was committed 
by the council to the Fleet.* 

In the autumn the protector invaded Scotland. His 
chief object was to endeavour to force the Scottish 
nation to agree to a union (so manifestly advanta- 
geous to both countries) by the marriage of the two 
young sovereigns ; but the queen-mother and the Ro- 
mish party were strongly opposed to it, and the Scot- 
tish Reformers had lately disgraced their cause by one 
of those atrocities which distinguished their rehgious 
temper from that of the Enghsh. The cardinal-pri- 
mate, by engaging the Earl of Bothwell to break his 
faith, having got into his hands a gentleman of the 
name of Wishart, a zealous preacher of the new doc- 
trine, had him tried and condemned to the flames for 
heresy ; and when Arran, the regent, refused to con- 
cur in the sentence, he, of his own authority, had 
caused him to be burned, himself witnessing the exe- 
cution from a window. Some of Wishart's friends 
determined on vengeance ; and they contrived, early 
in the morning of the 28th of May, 1546, to enter the 
castle of St. Andrews, and murder the cardinal in his 
bedchamber. Their friends then repaired to them, 

* A prison so called in London, and afterward the principal 
debtors' prison of that metropolis. — Am. Ed. 



1547.] INVASION OF SCOTLAND. 249 

and they sent to London to seek aid from Henry, 
who promised them his protection. By means of 
supplies forwarded to them from England, they were 
enabled to hold out against the regent for more than 
a twelvemonth ; but he at length succeeded in redu- 
cing them by the help of a fleet of French galleys. 

Somerset, taking with him the Earl of Warwick as 
second in command, crossed the Tweed on the 2d of 
September, at the head of twenty thousand men ; 
while a fleet under Lord Clinton moved in view along 
the coast. He had previously put forth a manifesto, 
stating all the reasons for the proposed marriage ; but 
the ostensible cause assigned for his invasion was the 
depredations committed by the Scottish borderers. 
Arran, on the other hand, summoned all the fighting 
men to his standard; and, having collected a force 
nearly double that of the English, he took his post on 
the banks of the Esk, about four miles from Edin- 
burgh. A skirmish of cavalry took place, in which 
the Scots were worsted. Somerset then proposed 
assailing their camp ; but, finding it too strong, he 
sent, offering to evacuate the kingdom, and to make 
good all the damage done, provided the Scots would 
engage not to marry their queen to any foreign prince, 
and to keep her at home till she should be of age to 
choose for herself. The moderation of these demands 
caused them to be rejected. The priests, who had 
flocked to the camp, inflamed the bigotry of the Scots 
against the English heretics : when they saw the pro- 
tector move toward the sea, they concluded that it was 
his intention to embark his troops, and thus escape ; 
and, confident of victory, they left their camp, crossed 
the river, and advanced in order of battle into the plain. 
In the engagement which ensued, the Scots, in conse- 
quence of their imprudence and impetuosity, found 
themselves exposed at once to the fire of the Eng- 
lish ships and to flights of arrows from their archers. 
They soon broke and fled ; and the road thence to 
Edinburgh was strewed with the bodies of the slain ; 
the priests, especially, finding no mercy. The loss 
of the Scots in the battle of Pinkey, as it is called, 



250 EDWARD VI. [1548 

was more than ten thousand slain and fifteen hundred 
prisoners ; while the victors lost not two hundred 
men. The protector, by following up his successes, 
might have now imposed what terms he pleased ; but 
the intelligence of intrigues against him at court de- 
termined him to return to London without delay ; and, 
leaving Warwick at Berwick, with fuU powers to treat 
of peace with Arran, he quitted Scotland, in which he 
had been altogether but sixteen days. The negotia- 
tions, however, came to nothing ; and the following 
year the young queen was conveyed to France, where 
she was soon after betrothed to the dauphin. 

On the return of Somerset a parliament was as- 
sembled. The law of treason was brought back to 
the statute of 25 Edw. III., and all the late laws ex- 
tending the crime of felony, those against Lollardy,* 
and that of the Six Articles, were repealed. Heresy, 
however, remained a capital crime ; and was to be 
punished, as heretofore, by burning. The act making 
the king's proclamation of equal force with a statute 
was also annulled. A law was passed restoring the 
communion in both kinds to the laity, and, at the same 
time, prohibiting all contempt and reviling of the eu- 
charist. Those who sought to fatten on the property 
of the church, carried, in spite of the opposition of 
Cranmer and the other prelates, an act for vesting in 
the crown the revenues of such colleges, chantries, 
etc., as had yet escaped the royal grasp. On the pro- 
rogation of parliament a general pardon was announ- 
ced, and Gardiner was therefore set at liberty. 

On the approach of Lent in 1548, an order of 
council was issued, prohibiting various superstitious 
usages common at that season. It was directed that 
candles should not be carried about on Candlemas- 
day, nor ashes presented on Ash-Wednesday, nor 
palms borne on Palm-Sunday.f Orders also were 

* The religious doctrines of the Lollards, as the followers of 
Wickliffe had been called in England.— ^Iw. Ed. 

t Candlemas — the festival commemorative of the presentation 
of Christ in the Temple— kept on the 2d of February, and deriving 
its name from the great number of candles lighted during mass 



1548.] PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION. 251 

given for the removal of all images, without excep- 
tion, from the churches. As many of the reformed 
preachers M^ere very intemperate in their language, 
none were henceforth to be allowed to preach who 
had not received a license for the purpose. On the 
8th of May a new communion-service was put forth 
by the royal authority. In the preface, the practice 
of auricular confession was left optional with the 
communicants : " a prelude," says Hume, " to the 
entire abolition of that invention ; one of the most 
powerful engines that ever was contrived for degra- 
ding the laity, and giving their spiritual guides an en- 
tire ascendant over them." In the course of the year, 
Cranmer, aided by several of the ablest divines among 
the Reformers, compiled a liturgy in English. They 
proceeded with great moderation and judgment, se- 
lecting and translating such portions of the mass as 
were agreeable to Scripture, and making no innova- 
tion for the mere sake of change. This liturgy, the 
basis of the service still in use, having been approved 
of by parliament, was ordered to be used in all the 
churches.* By another act, permission was given to 
the clergy to follow the dictates of nature, and enter 
into matrimony like other men. 

The protector's brother had, as we have seen, been 
created a baron by the title of Seymour of Sudeley ; 
and Warwick had also resigned the post of high-ad- 
miral in his father's favour. Seymour was a haughty, 
aspiring man ; he had been paying his addresses to 
Catharine Parr when Henry chose her for his queen. 

on that day in the churches. Ash-Wednesday — the first day of 
the great fast of Lent, and so called from the penitents lying on 
that day in ashes, the more deeply to express their humihation. 
Palm- Sunday— the last Sunday in Lent, or the Sunday before 
Easter, and receiving its name from the practice of carrying 
about palm branches on this day, in remembrance of Christ's tri- 
umphal entry into Jerusalem, when the multitude strewed these 
branches in his way. — Am. Ed. 

* 'I'his liturgy underwent a variety of alterations during the 
reigns of Elizabeth, James I., and Charles II., before it was 
finally completed, as in its present form, in the Book of Common 
Prayer.— ^m. Ed. 



252 EDWARD VI. [1548,1549. 

Neither had dared oppose the despot's will ; but her 
heart was Seymour's ; and the king was hardly con- 
signed to the tomb, when, with rather indecent haste, 
she gave him her hand. Her death, however, in Sep- 
tember, 1548, put an end to any hopes he might have 
formed of advancing his ambitious views through her 
wealth and influence ; and he therefore directed his 
thoughts to the Lady Elizabeth, now fifteen years of 
age, his attentions to whom had excited the jealousy 
of the dowager-queen, under whose care she lived. 
He also sought to win the affections of the young 
king, by supplying him frequently with money, and 
by insinuating that he was old enough to take the 
government on himself. Sharington, vice-treasurer 
of the mint at Bristol, had engaged to furnish him 
with funds ; and it was said that he had taken a 
large body of men into his pay, had fortified his house 
of Holt in Denbighshire, and that he intended to carry 
off the young king. He also engaged several of the 
discontented nobles to enter into his plans. Infor- 
mation of what he was about being laid before the 
council on the 19th of January, 1549, he was commit- 
ted to the Tower. A charge, consisting of thirty- 
three articles, was drawn up against him. To three 
of these, when exhibited to him, he answered, but he 
would not sign his replies : of the rest he took no no- 
tice, but persisted in demanding an open trial. On 
the 25th of February, a bill of attainder against him 
was brought into the upper house ; the judges declared 
the acts with which he was charged to be treasona- 
ble, and evidence was heard in proof of them. The 
bill passed the lords rapidly ; but in the commons it 
encountered much opposition, many expressing their 
disapprobation of this mode of proceeding by attain- 
der, and saying that the admiral ought to be heard in 
his defence. A message was brought from the king, 
declaring that all the evidence should be repeated be- 
fore them if they desired it. This, however, was 
not required ; and the commons immediately passed 
the bill, only ten or twelve members opposing it. It 
received the royal assent on the Mth of March; and, 



1549.] JOAN BOCHER. 253 

three days after, the warrant for the execution was 
signed by the council, Somerset and Cranmer being 
among those who affixed their names to it. On the 
20th the admiral was beheaded. He declared that 
"he had never committed or meant any treason 
against the king or kingdom." One of his last acts 
was to write letters, to be secretly delivered to the 
ladies Mary and Elizabeth, urging them to avenge his 
death. It certainly does not appear that the admi- 
ral's guilt amounted to treason. It was against his 
brother, and not the king, that he had conspired : he 
was, however, a dangerous man, and was evidently 
sacrificed to expediency.* 

No one had yet thought of putting down heresy in 
any way but by violence ; and the Reformers would as 
little bear any attack on the articles of faith which 
they had retained, a,s the Catholics themselves. In 
April, a commission was issued to Cranmer, and 
other prelates and laymen, to take cognizance of 
Anabaptists, heretics, and contemners of the common 
prayer. Several were brought before them, who re- 
canted, and bore fagots, as was in such cases the 
custom. A woman of good birth and education, in 
Kent, named Joan Bocher, was charged before the 
commissioners with maintaining an old exploded her- 
esy, namely, that Christ did not take flesh of the 
Virgin. Her words were, " Christ was not truly in- 
carnate of the Virgin, whose flesh being sinful, he 
could take none of it ; but the Word, by the consent 
of the inward man in the Virgin, took flesh of her." 
On her refusal to recant, Cranmer pronounced sen- 
tence on her, and she was delivered over to the sec- 
ular arm. " It is a goodly matter," said she to her 
judges, " to consider your ignorance. Not long ago 
you burned Anne Askew for a piece of bread, and 
yet came yourselves to believe and profess the same 
doctrine for which you burned her I And now, for- 

♦ The upright Latimer, in a sermon which he preached at this 
time, asserted Seymour's guilt in the most positive terms from 
his own knowledge. 

Vol. II.— Y 



254 EDWARD VI. [1649. 

sooth, you will burn me for a piece of flesh ; and, in 
the end, you will come to believe this also, when you 
have read the Scriptures and understand them." 
These words ought to have made Cranmer and Rid- 
ley, at least, who were probably the persons chiefly 
meant, doubt their own infallibility.* The poor wom- 
an was kept an entire year in prison, and Cranmer 
and Ridley had frequent conferences with her to no 
purpose. The young king had the greatest repug- 
nance to signing the warrant, and it was only the 
authority of Cranmer that at length overcame his 
scruples. He signed it, saying that the guilt, if any, 
must be on the primate's head.f She was consigned 
to the flames at Smithfield on the 2d of May in the 
following year. Dr. Scory preached on the occa- 
sion ; and she cried to him, " You he like a rogue ; 
go search the Scriptures." She died, as was to be 
expected, with constancy. About a year after a 
Dutchman named Parr was burned for Arianism. 

In the course of this summer insurrections broke 
out in various parts of the kingdom, the causes of 
which were partly religious, and partly civil and do- 
mestic. There are, perhaps, few evils without some 
attendant good ; and monachism, though injurious to 
the best interests of man, had some beneficial re- 
sults. The monks were in England, as in other 
countries, the most indulgent of landlords. Restricted 
to a particular mode of life, and not having famiUes to 
provide for, they had few motives to urge them to be 
griping and oppressive. They also resided constant- 
ly on their estates ; they received their rents mostly 
in kind, and they spent them on the spot, thus giving 
encouragement "to the industrious ; while the more 

* In 1545, Ridley, from studying the work of Ratramn on the 
subject, was led to reject the doctrine of the real presence. He 
communicated his ideas to Cranmer, who, on inquiry, came to 
coincide with him in opinion. 

t Foxe, 1179. Soames (Hist, of Reformat., iii., 544) attempts 
to throw doubt on the story. We wish he had succeeded : for, 
after making all due allowance, it is a blot on Cranmer's char 
acter. 



1549.] INSURRECTIONS OF THE PEASANTRY. 255 

indigent gentry were glad to share their liberal hospi- 
tality, and the poor in general derived relief from the 
food distributed at the convent-gate. But all this was 
changed when the abbey lands passed by gift or nom- 
inal purchase into the hands of the Russels, Paulets, 
Petres, and other vultures of the court. The ten- 
antry were obliged to surrender their leases, and take 
out new ones at double or treble the rent ; the new 
landlords neglected the injunction passed on them to 
maintain hospitality, and lived mostly in London, 
leaving their tenants to be oppressed by their stew- 
ards. Farther, as wool was found to be more profit- 
able than corn, they pulled down farmhouses and vil- 
lages, converted the arable land into sheep-walks, 
and, in their grasping spirit, took in and enclosed the 
commons. The peasantry, whose numbers had ra- 
ther increased in consequence of the long period of 
internal tranquillity which the kingdom had enjoyed, 
and whose occupation and subsistence were thus di- 
minished, felt the pressure of want severely : they 
had no longer the charity of the monasteries to look 
to ; and, to add to their distress, in consequence of the 
amount of the precious metals now poured into Eu- 
rope from the New World, and the frequent debase- 
ments of the coin in the late reign, the money prices 
of most articles had risen considerably ; while, owing 
to their numbers and the changes above mentioned, 
the supply of labour exceeded the demand for it, and 
thus they were unable to raise their wages in propor- 
tion. These causes, however, being in general far 
beyond their ken, they fixed on the one most appa- 
rent, and ascribed the deterioration of their condition 
solely to the changes made in the national religion. 

The people rose almost simultaneously in most of 
the midland, southern, and eastern counties ; but they 
were quieted by the eflforts of the gentry, and of some 
of the "honest men among themselves." The pro- 
tector, who was a man of humanity, seeing the justice 
of their complaints, issued, against the consent of the 
council, a commission of inquiry respecting enclo- 
sures, and directed that such as were found to be il- 



256 EDWARD VI. [1549. 

legal should be destroyed. The people, thus encour- 
aged, began of themselves to level the enclosures 
in sundry places, while the landowners exclaimed 
against the protector as sacrificing their interests to 
a passion for vulgar popularity. 

The most formidable risings were those in Oxford- 
shire, Devon, and Norfolk. The first, however, was 
easily suppressed by Lord Grey de Wilton ; the in- 
surgents dispersing at the approach of his troops, and 
leaving two hundred prisoners, twelve of whom were 
hanged as examples. The rising in Devon was much 
more formidable : it broke out on the 10th of June, in 
the parish of Sampford Courteney, where the new 
liturgy had been read for the first time the day before. 
The people compelled their priest, who was probably 
nothing loath, to read the old service. The insurrec- 
tion then rapidly spread ; the insurgents soon num- 
bered ten thousand men ; many of the gentry joined 
them, and the command was given to Humphrey 
Arundel, governor of St. Michael's Mount. Lord 
Russel, who w^as sent against them with a small 
force, tried what could be eflfected by negotiation : 
they required that the mass should be restored ; that 
the Six Articles should be again put in force ; that the 
sacrament should be hung up and worshipped ; that 
those who refused should be punished as heretics ; 
that the sacrament should be given to the people only 
at Easter, and in one kind ; that holy bread, holy 
water, and palms should be again used, and images 
again set up ; that the new service should be set aside ; 
that preachers in their sermons, and priests in the 
mass, should pray for souls in purgatory ; that the 
Bible should be suppressed, since otherwise the cler- 
gy could not easily confound the heretics ; and that 
Cardinal Pole should be restored, and made one of 
the council. They also required that half the abbey 
and church lands should be resumed, and that gen- 
tlemen should have but one servant for every hundred 
marks of yearly rent. To these demands, 'evidently 
dictated by their priests, Cranmer, by direction of the 
counc;il, drew up a reply ; and a proclamation was is- 



1549.] SUPPRESSION OF THE INSURRECTIONS. 257 

sued, in high terms, ordering them to disperse; but 
they advanced, with the consecrated wafer preceding 
them, to lay siege to Exeter. The citizens made a 
vigorous defence ; and the rebels, having tried in vain 
to take the town by escalade and by mnie, converted 
the siege into a blockade ; but Lord Russel, being re- 
enforced, attacked and routed them. Arundel, the 
mayor of Bodmin, and other leaders, were taken and 
executed ; and the vicar of vSt. Thomas was hanged 
from his ow^n steeple in his sacerdotal robes. 

The insurrection in Norfolk was headed by one 
Kett, a wealthy tanner of Wymondham. Having col- 
lected about twenty thousand of the peasantry, he 
took his station on Mousewold Hill, which overlooks 
Norwich ; and there, seated beneath an old oak, which 
was thence named the Oak of Reformation, he sum- 
moned the gentry before him, and made what decrees 
he pleased respecting enclosures and other matters. 
The Marquis of Northampton first proceeded against 
the rebels ; but he was routed, and Lord Sheffield 
was among the slain. Warwick was then sent with 
six thousand men, that had been levied for the war 
with Scotland. The rebels boldly descended into the 
plain to engage him ; but their rout was speedy and 
total ; two thousand were slain, and Kett was taken. 
He was hanged at Norwich, and nine others were 
suspended from the boughs of the Oak of Reforma- 
tion. 

The protector was now beset with difficulties on all 
sides : the war with Scotland languished, and the 
French had resumed hostilities and taken some places 
about Boulogne, and even menaced that possession ; 
but when he proposed a peace in council, the mem- 
bers objected to it. The nobiUty and gentry were 
hostile to him for having taken the part of the people ; 
and yet the people were not his friends because he 
was not of the old faith. The execution of his broth- 
er had alienated many ;* the great estate he had ac- 

* It was a common saying of those of his equals whom he 
treated shghtingly, " that friendship was not to be expected frorai 
a man who had shown no pity for his own brother." — Am. Ed. 
Y2 



258 EDWARD VI. [1549. 

quired, at the expense of the crown and the church, 
displeased others ; and the palace that he was build- 
ing for himself in the Strand brought great odium 
on him, from the means Avhich he employed. To 
procure a site and materials for this edifice he pulled 
down the church of St. Mary-le-Strand, and three 
bishops' mansions. He was proceeding to demolish 
St. Margaret's, Westminster, but the parishioners 
rose and drove off his Avorkmen. He then turned 
eastward and seized on Pardon churchyard and the 
buildings about it on the south side of St. Paul's ; the 
materials of which were conveyed to the Strand, and 
the bones of the dead carried away to Finsbury Fields. 
He finally blew up with gunpowder the steeple and 
part of the church of St. John of Jerusalem, neai 
Smithfield. 

Somerset's chief opponent was Dudley, earl of 
Warwick, an artful, unprincipled man. He was son 
to the notorious agent of Henry VH. ; but the late 
king, finding him a young man of ability, had restored 
him in blood and taken him into his service. In pur- 
suance of his plan of forming a new nobility out of 
the gentry, he had created him Viscount Lisle, and 
he was made Earl of Warwick in the beginning of 
the present reign. 

On the 6th of October, Warwick, Southampton 
(who had been restored to his place in the council), 
St. John the president. Lord Arundel, and five others, 
met at Ely House ; and, taking on themselves the 
whole power of the council, wrote to the chief nobil- 
ity and gentry, calling on them for aid ; as also to the 
lord mayor and aldermen of London, and the lieuten- 
ant of the Tower, directing them to obey their orders, 
and not those of the protector. Next day they were 
joined by Rich the chancellor, and several other 
counsellors- Secretary Petre, also, who had been 
sent to treat with them, was induced to remain. 
Somerset removed the king from Hampton Court to 
Windsor; but, finding himself generally deserted 
(Cranmer, Paget, and a few others only remaining 
faithful), he began to parley. Lord Russel and some 



1550.] FALL OF SOMERSET. 259 

others, who had hitherto remained neutral, now de- 
clared against him. On the 10th he invited Warwick 
and his friends to come to Windsor. They proceed- 
ed thither, and the next day they committed the 
duke's secretary, Cecil, and four others, to the Tower, 
and two days after the protector himself was sent, 
under a strong guard, to the same fortress. Twenty- 
nine articles of accusation were drawn up against 
him, in which, though the losses incurred in the war 
and his assumption of power were mentioned, the 
chief complaint was his having sympathized with the 
people and sought to do them justice. On the 23d of 
December he was brought before the council, and on 
his knees confessed his guilt and subscribed the 
charges against him. His life was spared, but he 
was deprived of all his offices, and of lands to the 
value of 2000^. a year. Somerset's spirit having re- 
vived when he found his life was safe, he ventured to 
remonstrate against the severity of his sentence ; but 
he was for this forced to sign a still humbler submis- 
sion. He was then liberated and pardoned. Soon 
after, his property was restored, he was again admit- 
ted into the council, and a marriage between his 
daughter. Lady Anne Seymour, and Warwick's eldest 
son, Lord Lisle, seemed to have reconciled the rival 
statesmen. 

The successful party now took care to reward them- 
selves with places and titles. Warwick became great 
master and lord high admiral ; the Marquis of North- 
ampton was made great chamberlain, and the lords 
Russel and St. John were created earls of Bedford and 
Wiltshire; while, to reward Lord Wentworth, the 
manors of Stepney and Hackney were taken from the 
see of London. The Catholics expected that their 
cause, to which Warwick was thought to lean, would 
be now triumphant ; but it was not of them or their 
cause that Warwick thought ; and, finding the young 
monarch devotedly attached to the principles of the 
Reformation, he would not risk his power by any ef- 
forts in their favour. Southampton, finding himself 
thwarted in his projects, withdrew from the council ; 



260 EDWARD VI. [1550. 

and his death in the following year deprived the Cath- 
olics of one of their ablest supporters. 

On the 34th of March a peace was made with France, 
in which Scotland was included. Boulogne was re- 
stored to the French king on his paying for it a sum 
of 400,000 crowns ; and a negotiation was then set on 
foot for the marriage of Edward with a princess of 
France. 

Whatever might be Warwick's private sentiments, 
it was resolved to carry on the Reformation. Many 
of the bishops were, if not hostile, at least lukewarm 
in this matter : and as they had, at tlie accession, ac- 
knowledged that they held their sees at the royal pleas- 
ure, an easy mode of proceeding against them pre- 
sented itself. Bonner of London had been already de- 
prived. At the close of the insurrections in the pre- 
ceding year, he had been directed to preach at St. 
Paul's Cross, and inculcate the wickedness of rebell- 
ion, the superiority of holiness of life over ceremo- 
nial observances, and the competence of the king du- 
ring his minority to make laws binding on his subjects. 
The first two he discoursed of in such a way as to ad- 
vocate the doctrine of the real presence, while on 
the third he was perfectly silent. Two of the re- 
formed clergy, Hooper and W. Latimer, who were 
present, deemed it their duty to denounce his sermon 
to the council. A commission was issued to two 
prelates, Cranmer and Ridley, the two secretaries of 
state, Petre and Smyth, and May, dean of St. Paul's, 
to examine into the charges. Nothing could well ex- 
ceed Bonner's assurance when before them, and his 
language was abusive and violent. After several 
hearings, his defence not being deemed sufficient, it 
was resolved to withdraw from him the trust which 
he was held to have perverted. A sentence of depri- 
vation for various causes was pronounced, and he 
was deprived of his see and confined in the *Marshal- 

* This was a prison in Southwark, the part of London situated 
on the sonth or Surrey side of the Thatnes, and was so named 
from its being under the direction and charge of the marshal of 
tlie king's household. — Am. Ed. 



1550.] INTOLERANCE OF THE REFORMERS. 261 

sea. Ridley was then translated from Rochester to 
London. 

Gardiner had been now lying in the Tower for two 
years, for having preached a sermon nearly similar 
to that of Bonner on a hke occasion. The Duke of 
Somerset and some other members of the council 
were sent, on the 8th of June, to try to induce him to 
express sorrow for the past and to promise future 
obedience ; no decisive answer, however, could be 
obtained from him. On the tentifi of July, six articles, 
relating to the royal authority in matters of religion 
and the book of Common Prayer, were oft'ered to him 
to sign. He objected to the preamble, which con- 
tained an acknowledgment that he had acted wrong, 
and an expression of his sorrow for having done 
so. A new series of articles, expressive of approba- 
tion of the late changes, were next offered to him ; 
but, as the preface was still the same, he refused to 
sign these also. The revenues of his see were then 
sequestered ; and, when this produced no effect on 
him, a commission was appointed to try him ; he ap- 
pealed to the king, but his appeal was rejected, and 
sentence of deprivation was passed. Day of Chiches- 
ter, Heath of Worcester, and Voisey of Exeter, were 
also deprived for non-compliance with the new order 
of things. 

It has been justly observed that, if any person had 
aright to hate the Reformation, it was the Lady Mary : 
for it was associated in her mind with her mother's 
injuries and her own. She inherited her father's firm- 
ness and her mother's melancholy ; she had been sed- 
ulously brought up in the doctrines of the Church of 
Rome, and she now clung to them with characteristic 
pertinacity. The young king, no less bigoted in his 
own creed, viewed her adherence to the mass with 
horror, but the influence of the emperor prevailed 
with the council, and she had her private masses. 
Two of her chaplains, however. Mallet and Berkley, 
having celebrated mass where she was not present, 
were committed to the Tower. Letters and mes- 
sages passed between her and the council. She de- 



262 EDWARD VI. [1550. 

clared herself ready to endure death for her reh- 
gion, and only feared that she was not good enough 
to suffer martyrdom in so good a cause. She added, 
that " As for their books, as she thanked God she never 
had, so she never would read them." The emperor 
menaced war if she should be molested any farther ; 
and, as this would at the time have been very injuri- 
ous to the commercial interests of the country, the 
council prudently resolved to connive at her disobedi- 
ence to the law ; but it required all the influence both 
of Cranmer and Ridley to overcome the scruples of 
the young king at thus tolerating what he beheyed to 
be little better than idolatry. 

In the course of this year the Book of Common 
Prayer underwent a new revision and improvement ; 
and articles of religion, forty-two in number, were 
drawn up. Several of the Lutheran divines, particu- 
larly Bucer and Peter Martyr, were now in England, 
and aided the EngUsh divines with their advice. 
They had sought a refuge from the persecution of the 
emperor, who, though he could plead the rights of con- 
science in the case of the Lady Mary, refused to allow 
even the King of England's ambassadors to use, in 
their own houses, within his dominions, the "com- 
munion and other divine services, according to the 
laws of their country."* 

The ambition of Warwick now began to display 
itself more fully : the title of Northumberland having 
become vacant' by the death of the late earl without 
heirs, he caused it, with the greater part of the ample 
possessions of that noble house, to be granted to him- 
self. His friend Paulet earl of Wiltshire, the treas- 
urer, was at the same time created Marquis of Win- 
chester ; the Marquis of Dorset, Duke of Suffolk : and 
Sir William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. He was de- 
termined to ruin Somerset, whom, though fallen in 
power and reputation, he still regarded as an obstacle 
in the path of his ambition. For this purpose he 
sought to gain over the friends and servants of that 

* Proceedings of the Privy Council, 32. 



1551.] TRIAL OF SOMERSET. 263 

nobleman, and thus surround him with spies ; he pro- 
voked him by menaces and insults ; and when the 
duke broke out into passionate expressions or formed 
vague projects of revenge (which were usually aban- 
doned as soon as conceived), the information was con- 
veyed to Northumberland. When he thought he had 
thus obtained matter enough for a plausible accusa- 
tion, he resolved to proceed to action without farther 
delay. 

On the 16th of October, 1551, the Duke of Somer- 
set and his friend Lord Grey were arrested and com- 
mitted to the Tower ; and the next day the duchess 
and several of her favourites were also thrown into 
prison. Shortly after the Earl of Arundel and the 
lords Paget and Decies were arrested. On the 1st of 
December, the duke, having been previously indicted 
at Guildhall, was brought to trial in Westminster 
Hall ; the newly-created Marquis of Winchester sat 
as high steward ; and Northumberland, Northampton, 
and Pembroke were among the judges,* who were 
twenty-seven in number. The charges against Som- 
erset were, that he had intended to depose the king, 
and had plotted to seize and imprison the Earl of War- 
wick (Northumberland). The witnesses were not 
produced ; but their depositions, made the day before, 
were read. According to these, it had been arranged 
that Grey should levy forces in the north ; that Paget 
should invite Northumberland, Northampton, and 
Pembroke to dine with him at his house in the Strand ; 
that Somerset's band of one hundred horsemen should 
intercept them, or, if they were too well attended, as- 
sassinate them when at table ; and that the duke should 
meanwhile raise the city and attack the gens cfarmes 
of the guard. All this Somerset positively denied: 
but he owned that he had spoken of the murder of these 
lords, though he had at once abandoned the project. 
The peers, after retiring for some time, acquitted him 
of treason, but found him guilty of felony. Their 

* When Somerset objected to them it was replied, that no chal 
lenge could be made to a peer. 



264 EDWARD VI. [1552. 

verdict was unanimous ; and he acknowledged its jus- 
tice, asked pardon of the three lords, and expressed a 
hope that his life would be spared. When the people 
saw him come forth without the axe being borne be- 
fore him, as was usual in the case of peers charged 
with high treason, they thought he was acquitted, 
and set up a loud shout of joy. 

It was perhaps this proof of the unfortunate duke's 
popularity which determined Northumberland not to 
spare him. The utmost pains were taken to impress 
his royal nephew with a belief of his guilt ; and the 
prisoner was deprived of all means of communicating 
with the king, who, as it was now the season of 
Christmas, was kept engaged in a constant succession 
of amusements. 

The •22d of January, 1552, was the day appointed 
for the execution. Tliough orders had been issued 
for the citizens to keep their families and servants 
within doors till after ten o'clock, Tower Hill was 
crowded at daybreak by the people, by whom Som- 
erset was greatly beloved. At eight the duke as- 
cended the scaffold, with a firm step and a cheerful 
countenance. He knelt and prayed, then rose and 
addressed the people, asserting his loyalty, rejoicing 
in the state of purity to which he had been instru- 
mental in bringing the national religion, and exhorting 
them to accept and embrace it thankfully. A move- 
ment, of which the cause did not immediately appear, 
now took place among the people, and several were 
thrown down and crushed. Presently Sir Anthony 
Brown, a member of the council, was seen approach- 
ing on horseback; and the people, fancying he 
brought a reprieve, flung up their caps, shouting, " A 
pardon, a pardon ! God save the king !" A gleam of 
nope flushed the countenance of Somerset ; but, when 
the truth was ascertained, he resumed his address 
with composure ; and having concluded it, and read a 
paper containing his profession of faith, he knelt down 
and received the fatal stroke. Several persons then 
pressed forward and steeped their handkerchiefs in his 
blood, as in that of a martyr. 



1552.] Tt/NSTALL. 265 

Like many other unfortunate persons in history, the 
Duke of Somerset was unequal to the situation in 
which he was placed ; his talents were ill matched 
with his ambition ; and he thus fell into the gravest 
errors, and even stained himself with a brother's 
blood. In more tranquil times, his naturally mild and 
humane disposition might have caused him to pass a 
life of peace and happiness. Somerset stands almost 
alone at this period as a nobleman really caring for 
the rights and interests of the lower classes of the 
people. 

Four of Somerset's friends were executed. The 
Earl of Arundel and Lord Paget were never brought 
to trial, but they were obliged to make submissions 
and confessions, resign their offices, and pay fines. 
Lord de Grey and some others were discharged. 

The next of Northumberland's victims was Tun- 
stall, the estimable prelate of Durham. As Tun- 
stall's firm adherence to Romanism had made him ad- 
verse to the new order of things, a person named 
Menville had written to him, proposing a plan for an 
insurrection in the north. The bivShop incautiously 
answered the letter. Menville then gave information 
to the council, who summoned Tunstall before them ; 
but his letter to Menville could not be found, and no- 
thing, therefore, could be proved against him. Som- 
erset, it would appear, had concealed this letter out of 
regard to the bishop ; for, after his death, it was found 
in one of his caskets. The proceedings, therefore, 
were now resumed ; and a bill of attainder was in- 
troduced into the house of lords and passed, none op- 
posing it except Cranmer and Lord Stourton, a zeal- 
ous Catholic. The commons, more just or more 
courageous, insisted that the bishop and his accusers 
should be confronted ; and, this being refused, they 
threw out the bill. A commission was then appointed 
to try him ; and he was deprived, and his goods con- 
fiscated. The regahties of the see were transferred 
to Northumberland ; and, but for subsequent events, 
much of its property also would have gone into his 
possession. 

Vol. IL— Z 



266 EDWARD VI. [1553. 

In the month of April of the following year, 1553, 
the young king had an attack of the measles, which 
was followed by the smallpox : his constitution, ori- 
ginally delicate, was much shaken, and there seemed 
little prospect of his life being prolonged for many 
years. If the Lady Mary should succeed, Northum- 
berland had everything to apprehend : he therefore 
represented to Edward the dangers likely to result to 
true religion, should the supreme power of the state 
come to one so bigoted to the ancient superstition ; 
and reminded him that the act of parliament declaring 
her illegitimacy was still in force, and might be em- 
ployed to exclude her. Although the Princess Eliza- 
beth was a Protestant, she came under the same act, 
and consequently must also be excluded ; so that there 
only remained the descendants of the daughters of 
Henry VII., the queens of Scotland and France. But 
these were excluded by the late king's will: the 
Duchess of Suffolk, eldest daughter of the latter by 
the Duke of Suffolk, was consequently next in order 
of succession ; and she would willingly transfer her 
rights to her eldest daughter, the Lady Jane Grey, of 
whose attachment to Protestantism there could be no 
doubt. To these suggestions Edward listened with 
approbation. 

The ambitious Northumberland aimed not merely 
at excluding the Lady Mary, but hoped to bring a 
crown matrimonial into his own house. At this very 
time, his residence, Durham House, was the scene of 
connubial festivities ; the Lady .Tane Grey became the 
bride of his fourth son, Lord Guilford Dudley ; her 
sister Catharine was married to the eldest son of the 
Earl of Pembroke ; and the Lady Catharine Dudley 
to Lord Hastings, eldest son of the Earl of Hunting- 
don. 

On the 11th of June, Sir Edward Montague, chief 
justice of the common pleas, was summoned, with 
two of the other judges, and the attorney and solicitor 
general, to attend the king at Greenwich. When they 
came, Edward apprized them of his intentions re- 
specting the devise of the crown ; and putting into 



1553.] SETTLEMENT OF THE CROWN. 267 

their hands a draught of the measure, signed by him in 
six different places, desired them to draw up a legal 
instrument to that effect. They attempted to remon- 
strate, but he would not hear them ; and only granted 
them some delay to examine the various settlements 
of the crown. Two days afterward they came, and 
informed the council that such an instrument would 
subject both the drawers and the advisers of it to the 
penalties of treason. Northumberland, who was in 
an adjoining room, when he heard this, came out in a 
rage, and, calling Montague a traitor, said, "I will 
fight in my shirt with any man in this quarrel." They 
retired ; and, soon after, all but the solicitor-general 
were again summoned to appear before the king, who 
asked them in an angry tone why they had not obeyed 
his command. The chief justice explained the rea- 
son ; and, when the king expressed his intention of 
calling a parliament, advised that the matter should 
be deferred till it met. But Edward insisted on its 
being done immediately ; and the lawyers finally con- 
sented, on condition of receiving a commission under 
the great seal and a pardon. When the instrument 
was drawn up, Northumberland resolved that it should 
be signed by all the privy counsellors, and by the 
judges and law officers. Among the judges. Sir James 
Hales, a zealous Protestant, alone refused, and Cran- 
mer only among the counsellors ; but, with his wonted 
weakness, he swerved from his resolution. He had all 
along advised the king against the measure ; and ear- 
nestly sought, but could not obtain, a private audience, 
in the hope of dissuading him from it. When called 
on to sign, like the rest, he said, " I cannot set my 
hand to this instrument without committing perjury : 
for I have already sworn to the succession of the Lady 
Mary, according to his late majesty's testament." He 
was then required to attend the king. " I hope," said 
Edward to him, " that you will not stand out, and be 
more repugnant to my will than all the rest of my 
council. The judges have informed me that I may 
lawfully bequeath my crown to the Lady Jane, and 
that my subjects may lawfully receive her as queen, 



268 EDWARD VI. [1553. 

notwithstanding the oath which they took under my 
father's will." Cranmer asked permission to consult 
with the judges : their explanations seem to have re- 
moved his scruples, as he put his signature to the 
devise. 

The young king was now taken from under the care 
of his physicians, who declared that their skill was 
baffled, and committed to the charge of a woman, who 
pretended to have some specific for his disease ; but 
he rapidly grew worse, and on the 6th of July he 
breathed his last. Almost his last words were, " Oh 
my Lord God, defend this realm from papistry, and 
maintain thy true religion, that I and my people may 
praise thy holy name for Jesus Christ's sake." 

Edward died so young that his character had not 
developed itself sufficiently to enable us to appreciate 
it. He has, however, been the subject of unlimited 
panegyric to the pens of zealous Protestants, who 
identify him with the progress made by the Reforma- 
tion in his reign. He was certainly amiable in his 
disposition, and his piety was fervent and sincere, 
but it showed symptoms of degenerating into bigotry 
and intolerance. His abilities were more than mod- 
erate, and they had been carefully cultivated. It is 
to the glory of Edward's reign, and to the honour of 
his advisers, that it was free from bloodshed on ac- 
count of the contest between the old and new reli- 
gions.* " Edward," says Dodd, a Catholic, " did not 
shed blood on that account. No sanguinary, but only 
penal, laws were executed on those who stood off." 
The furious zealots of the succeeding reign could not, 
therefore, say that they followed the example set 
them by those they murdered. 

* That this, however, is to be attributeH to policy or circum- 
stances rather than to a truly tolerant spirit on the part of Ed- 
ward and his advisers, is shown by the executions which took 
place during this reign on other rehgious grounds. Indeed, it 
was long after this before there was any just appreciation of the 
rights of conscience in matters of religion. The general sentiment 
in relation to this subject was utterly perverted and wrong: for, 
says an eloquent writer, " the toleration of heresy was deemed 



1553.] LADY JANE GREY. 269 



CHAPTER VII. 



1553-1555, 



Lady Jane Grey.— The People declare for Mary.—Tiial and Ex- 
ecution of Northumberland.— Proceedings against the Reform- 
ers. — The Queen's Marriage. — Wyat's Insurrection.— Execution 
of Lady Jane, her Husband, and her Father. — Danger of the 
Princess Elizabeth. — Marriage of the Queen. — Arrival of Car- 
dinal Pole.— The Princess Elizabeth. 

Northumberland intended to keep the death of King 
Edward for some time a secret. His object was to 
get the princesses into his power, for which purpose 
they had been summoned to London to see their 
brother. The Lady Mary had reached Huntsdon, in 
Herts, on the evening of the king's death ; but, hav- 
ing received secret intelhgence of that event from 
Arundel, she mounted her horse, and rode with all 
speed to Kenninghall, in Norfolk. 

The council spent three days in making the neces- 
sary arrangements for securing the succession of Lady 
Jane. During this time they communicated the death 
of the king to the lord mayor, and some of the alder- 
men and citizens, under the seal of secrecy. On the 
fourth day they proceeded to make that event public ; 
and the chief of them rode to Sion House, to announce 
her dignity to the young queen. 

by men of all persuasions to be as unreasonable, as it would now 
be thought to propose the impunity of murder." So completely 
blind to the plainest dictates of justice and reason, no less than 
to the entire letter and spirit of the benign religion of the gospel, 
may men become when under the combined influence of preju- 
dice and passion. And what a lesson does history read to us, 
vigilantly to guard the avenues of our heart against the unhallow- 
ed intrusion of a spirit of intolerance in matters of religious faith 
and opinion. — Am. Ed. 
* Authorities the same as for the preceding reign. 

zs 



270 MARY. [1553. 

The Lady Jane Grey was now but sixteen years of 
age : her person was pleasing, her disposition amiable 
and gentle, and her talents of a superior order. Of the 
extent of her acquirements and the serious turn of 
her mind, we have a proof in the following anecdote, 
related by the learned Roger Aschani : Going one day 
to Bradgate, the residence of her family, he learned 
that the other members of it were hunting in the Park : 
but he found the Lady Jane at home, deeply engaged 
in the perusal of Plato's Phaedon,* in the original 
Greek. When he expressed his surprise at her thus 
foregoing the pleasures of the Park, she replied, with 
a smile, " I fancy all their sport is but a shadow to 
the pleasure that I find in Plato. Alas ! good folks, 
they never felt what true pleasure means." Besides 
the classic languages, she is said to have been ac- 
quainted with French and Italian, and even to have 
acquired some knowledge of the Oriental tongues. 

Her usual residence since her marriage had been at 
Sion House, but she had lately removed to Chelsea. 
An order of the council to return to her former abode, 
and there await the commands of the king, was now 
conveyed to her by her husband's sister, Lady Sidney. 
Next morning she was visited by Northumberland, 
Northampton, Arundel, Huntingdon, and Pembroke. 
They addressed her in terms of unwonted respect; 
her mother, her mother-in-law, and the Marchioness 
of Northampton then ejitered ; and the duke informed 
her of the death of her royal cousin, and his devise in 
her favour, in order to preserve the realm from papis- 
try. The lords then fell on their knees, and swore 
that they were ready to shed their blood in her right. 
At this unexpected intelligence Jane burst into a flood 
of tears, and fell senseless on the ground. When she 
recovered, she bewailed her cousin's death, and ex- 
pressed her sense of her unfitness to supply his place ; 
but added, looking up to heaven, " If the right be truly 
mine, oh gracious God, give me strength, I pray most 
earnestly, so to rule as to promote thy honour and 
my country's good." 

♦ His work on the immortality of the soul.— J.»i. Ed. 



1553.] THE PEOPLE DECLARE FOR MARY. 271 

A barge was prepared, and the next day Jane was 
conveyed to the Tower, the usual residence of the 
Enghsh sovereigns previously to their coronation. 
As she entered it her train was borne by her own 
mother ; her husband walked at her side, with his cap 
in hand ; and all the nobles bent the knee as she pass- 
ed. Her succession was now publicly proclaimed: 
but the people, whose notions of hereditary right were 
strong, and who hated Northumberland, listened with 
apathy. A vintners boy, who ventured to express his 
dissent, was set in the pillory, and lost his ears for his 
offence. Many of the reformed clergy preached in 
favour of the present change in the succession ; and 
Bishop Ridley exerted his eloquence in the same 
cause at St. Paul's Cross, though with little effect. 
For this he has been blamed, and, it may be, with rea- 
son ; but he had had recent experience of Mary's un- 
yielding bigotry, and doubtless he deemed that there 
was no safety for the Reformation but in her exclu- 
sion. 

Though the partisans of Jane had the government, 
the treasures, a fleet, an army, and the fortresses in 
their hands, the cause of Mary was strong in the pop- 
ular notion of her right, and still stronger in the pop- 
ular aversion to Northumberland. The people of Nor- 
folk, who had suffered so much at his hands in their 
late insurrection, were on that account disposed to fa- 
vour her, and she was proclaimed at Norwich on the 
13th of July. She had previously written to the coun- 
cil, demanding why they had concealed her brother's 
death, and requiring them to have her instantly pro- 
claimed; but a denial of her right was returned, and 
she was called on to "surcease to molest any of 
Queen Jane's subjects." Her letters to divers of the 
nobility and gentry were better attended to : the earls 
of Bath and Sussex, and the heirs of lords Wharton 
and Mordaunt joined her, at the head of their tenantry ; 
and Sir Edward Hastings, who had been sent by North- 
umberland to raise four thousand men for the cause of 
Jane, led them to the support of Mary. This princess 
had now removed to the Duke of Norfolk's castle of 



272 MARY. [1553 

Framlingliam, on the coast of Suffolk, that she might 
escape to Flanders, if necessary. A fleet had been 
sent to intercept her, but the crews were induced to 
declare in her favour. So many of the nobility and 
gentry had now joined her, that she found herself at 
the head of an army of thirty thousand men ; and Sir 
Edward Hastings and some other leaders were pre- 
paring to march from Drayton to Westminster with 
ten thousand men. 

On receiving this intelligence, the council directed 
the Duke of Suffolk to advance with the troops which 
had been collected against the Lady Mary ; but Jane 
with tears implored them not to deprive her of her 
father. As Suffolk's incapacity was well known, the 
council now called on Northumberland himself to take 
the command. He complied, though with reluctance, 
it is said, for he feared their treachery. He sent his 
troops forward ; and, on receiving the assurances of 
the nobles that they would join him with their forces 
at Newmarket on the 14th of July, he set forth with 
his train. The indifference shown by the assembled 
populace was such as to cause him to observe to Lord 
Grey, as they rode through Shoreditch, " The people 
press to look on us, but not one saith God speed ye." 
He proceeded to Cambridge, whence, on the 17th, he 
advanced at the head of eight thousand foot and two 
thousand horse in the direction of Framlingham, but 
at Bury St. Edmund's he found it advisable to retreat, 
and returned to Cambridge, whence he wrote to the 
council, requiring them to send him re-enforcements 
without loss of time. 

But things in London had, in the mean time, taken 
a new direction. On the 19th, the lord treasurer and 
lord privy seal, the earls of Arundel, Shrewsbury, and 
Pembroke, Sir Thomas Cheney, and Sir John Mason, 
met at Baynard's Castle, where they were attended 
by the lord-mayor, the recorder, and some of the al- 
dermen. Arundel, who had all along been in secret 
correspondence with Mary, advised them to acknowl- 
edge her ; and he answered the main objection by say- 
ing, " How doth it appear that Mary intends any alter- 



1553.] ACCESSION OF MARY. 273 

ation in religion 1 Certainly, having been lately peti- 
tioned on this point by the Suffolk men, she gave them 
a very hopeful answer."* Pembroke then drew his 
sword and exclaimed, " If the arguments of my Lord 
of Arundel do not persuade you, this sword shall make 
Mary queen, or I will die in her quarrel."! All, how- 
ever, gave a willing assent ; they then rode forth and 
proclaimed Mary at St. Paul's Cross, amid the accla- 
mations of the populace, to whom beer, wine, and 
money were distributed, and the night was ushered in 
by bonfires and illuminations. 

Arundel and Paget having set forth with the news 
to Mary, Pembroke took the custody of the Tower 
from Suffolk. The Lady Jane, after a brief reign of 
only ten days, laid down her royalty and retired to 
Sion House. When her father announced to her the 
necessity for her resignation, she replied that it was 
far more agreeable than his late announcement of her 
accession had been ; and expressed a wish that her 
cheerful abdication might atone for the offence she 
had committed in accepting the crown, in obedience 
to him and her mother. Northumberland himself, 
when he found the turn matters were taking, pro- 
claimed Queen Mary at Cambridge ; but he was ar- 
rested by Arundel, and committed to the Tower,J as 
were also the Duke of Suffolk and twenty-five more 
of their friends. 

Mary now advanced towards London. At Wan- 
stead, in Essex, she was met by the Lady Elizabeth, 
at the head of a stately cavalcade of knights, ladies, 
gentlemen, and their servants. Four days after, the 

* " Which, indeed, was true," adds Bishop Godwin, as of his 
own knowledge As it appears, however, to have been only ver- 
bal, it was easy for Mary and her partisans afterward to deny it. 

t This fervent loyalist had been one of those who signed the 
devise of the crown to Jane, and he had sworn a few days before 
to shed his blood in her cause ! 

:|: As he was led through the city, a woman displayed one of the 
handkerchiefs dipped in Somerset's blood. " Behold," she cried, 
" the blood of that worthy man, the good uncle of that worthy 
prince, which was shed by thy malicious practices ! It plainly 
now begins to revenge itself on thee." 



274 MARY. [1553. 

two sisteis, followed by a magnificent train, rode 
through the city to the Tower : Mary small, thin, and 
delicate ; Elizabeth tall, handsome, and well-formed, 
and carefully displaying her beautiful hands. In the 
Tower Mary was met by four state-prisoners of 
rank : the Duke of Norfolk, the Duchess of Somer- 
set, Courtenay, son of the late Marquis of Exeter,, 
and Gardiner, bishop of Winchester. She raised them 
from the ground where they knelt, kissed them, and 
gave them their liberty. The next day she released 
Tunstall and Bonner. When forming her council, 
she bestowed the office of chancellor on Gardiner, 
who soon showed that his captivity had not subdued 
his haughty, overbearing spirit. Paget was the next 
in influence and importance in her cabinet. 

Though Mary had hitherto led a life of seclusion, 
the love of splendid apparel, which seems to have 
been inherent in her family, was seated deep in her 
heart ; and she gave loose to it in such a manner as 
to surprise even the French ambassador, who must 
have been well used to the pomp and display of dress 
at his own court. She required all about her, both 
lords and ladies, to be similarly arrayed ; and gray- 
haired dames of sixty were now to be seen in the 
gayest hues, and laden with jewels and ornaments : 
widely unlike the sober court of Edward VI. Her 
coronation was celebrated on the 30th of September, 
with all possible splendour. It was performed in the 
ancient manner : her clothes were all consecrated ; 
she was anointed on various parts of her head and 
body ; Gardiner chanted mass ; and the crown was 
borne by Elizabeth, who, with Anne of Cleves, after- 
ward dined at the queen's table. A general pardon to 
all except sixty persons, who were named, was on the 
same day proclaimed. 

On the 18th of August, Northumberland, his son 
Lord Warwick, the Marquis of Northampton, Sir 
John and Sir Henry Gates, Sir Andrew Dudley, and 
Sir Thomas Palmer, were iDrought to trial. Norfolk 
presided as lord high steward, for the trial of the three 
peers. Northumberland submitted these questions: 



1553.] EXECUTION OF NORTHUMBERLAND. 275 

Could a man be guilty of treason who obeyed orders 
given him by the council under the great seal ; and 
could those who were involved in the same guilt with 
him sit as his judges I He was told that the council 
and great seal of which he spoke were those of a 
usui-per, and that those against w^hom there was no 
sentence of attainder were qualified to sit as judges. 
They all then pleaded guilty. The commoners, who 
were tried the next day, did the same. Northumber- 
land, Sir John Gates, and Sir Thomas Palmer, were 
selected for execution. 

Abject in adversity as insolent in prosperity, North- 
umberland sought an interview with Gardiner, and 
implored his interest to save his life. " Alas !" he 
cried, " let me live a little longer, though it be but in 
a mousehole." Gardiner expressed a wish to serve 
him, but could not venture to give any hopes. He 
then prayed that a learned priest might be sent, to 
whom he might confess ; adding, that he had never 
been of any religion but the bishop's own, though, 
for ambitious motives, he had pretended otherwise, 
and that so he would declare at his death. Gardiner, 
it is said, shed tears ; and, there is reason to believe, 
did apply to Mary on his behalf; but the emperor 
had strictly enjoined her not to spare him, and, in- 
deed, there was little reason why she should. Bishop 
Heath was sent to give him spiritual comfort. On 
the 21st, the duke and his fellow-prisoners attended 
mass. He received the eucharist in one kind, and ad- 
dressed those present, expressing his regret for his 
share in putting down the mass, and his intention to 
have restored it, which, he said, " I could not do at 
once, because it was necessaiy for my ends to win 
the hearts of the Londoners, who love new things." 
Before evening it was announced to him that he was 
to die the next morning. He wrote in the most sup- 
plicatory terms to Gardiner and Arundel, but in vain. 
At the time announced, he was led, Avith Gates and 
Palmer, to the scaffold on Tower Hill. The duke, ta- 
king oflf his damask gown, leaned over the railing on 
the east side, and addressed the spectators. He ac- 



276 MARY. [1553. 

knowledged his guilt, but said that he had been incited 
by others, whom he would not name ; and exhorted 
the people to return to the ancient faith, without 
which they could not hope for peace. " By our 
creed," said he, " we are taught to say, ' I believe in 
the holy Catholic faith ;' and such is my very belief, 
as my lord bishop here present can testify. All this 
I say, not from having been commanded so to do, but 
of my own free-will." He then prayed, and laid his 
head on the block. His two companions died with 
penitence and courage, but made no recantation. 

Such was the merited end of this bold, bad man. 
His confession, it has been finely observed, " was not 
attended with those marks of penitence which might 
render it respectable : it served only to strip his con- 
duct of any palliation which the mixture of a motive, 
in its general nature commendable, might have in 
some degree afforded." It matters little whether he 
were sincere or not : he certainly seems to have 
looked for a reprieve up to the moment when he laid 
his head on the block.* 

The other prisoners, with the exception of Lady 
Jane and her husband, w^ere set at liberty. But, not- 
withstanding all this clemency, the prospect for the 
Protestants was gloomy and cheerless. The queen 
made no secret of her attachment to the Church of 
Rome, though she still pretended that she would not 
interfere with the religion of the people. The Cath- 
olic priests, now imboldened, ventured to celebrate 
mass openly in some places. Bourne, one of the 
royal chaplains, when preaching at St. Paul's Cross, 
dared to attack what had been done in the late reign. 
The people became excited ; a cry of " Pull him 
down !" was raised, stones were thrown, and some 
one flung a dagger, which hit one of the pillars of the 
pulpit. He might have lost his life but for Bradford 
and Rogers, two reformed preachers, who calmed the 
fury of the people, and conveyed him into St. Paul's 
school. The queen took advantage of this to forbid 

* Foxe asserts that he had been promised a pardon. 



1553.] IMPRISONMENT OF THE REFORMERS. 277 

public preaching, which had been the great weapon of 
the Reformers. 

No one could plead better the rights of conscience 
in her own case during the late reign than Mary; 
but, in the case of her sister, she seems to have for- 
gotten them all. Elizabeth found it necessary for her 
safety to attend mass ; and she was even obliged to 
stoop, some time after, to the hypocrisy of writing to 
the emperor to send her a cross, chalice, and other 
things, for the celebration of mass in her private 
chapel. 

Ridley was already in the Tower ; and Hooper, 
bishop of Gloucester, and others, were also in prison. 
Cranmer had hitherto been suffered to remain at 
Lambeth ; but when the subdean Thorndon had the 
audacity to have mass celebrated in the cathedral of 
Canterbury, the primale felt it his duty to show that 
this was without his participation, and drew up a pa- 
per containing his sentiments on the mass. Bishop 
Scory, calling on him, saw it, and obtained a copy ; and 
from this several other copies were made, one of 
which was publicly read in Cheapside. Cranmer was 
summoned before the council : he acknowledged the 
paper to be his, and said his intention had been to en- 
large it, affix his seal to it, and put it upon the doors 
of St. Paul's and other churches. He was committed 
to the Tower on the 14th of September, on a charge 
of treason. Latimer had been sent thither on the pre- 
ceding day for his " seditious demeanour," as it was 
termed. As the venerable man was led through 
Smithfield, he anticipated his fate, and said, " This 
place has long groaned for me." Most of the lead- 
ing Protestants were now in prison ; many had fled 
from the kingdom, and Peter Martyr and the other 
foreigners were ordered to depart. When the men 
of Suffolk sent to remind the queen of her promises, 
they met with insult ; and one of them, named Dobbe, 
was set in the pillory. The intentions of the queen 
and her council could now be no secret to any one. 
When the news of her accession reached Rome, the 
pope instantly appointed Pole papal legate for Eng- 

VoL. IL — A A 



278 MARY. [1553. 

land ; and, soon after, a Romish envoy, named Com- 
mendone, who had gone over to England, and had had 
private interviews with the queen, arrived with a let- 
ter to the pontiff, in her own handwriting, in vi^hich 
she engaged for the return of herself and her king- 
dom to obedience to the Holy See. Pole Avas impa- 
tient to proceed at once to England, but Gardiner 
feared he would precipitate matters too much. The 
emperor, too, apprehended his opposition in an affair 
he had much at heart, and impediments were accord- 
ingly thrown in his way. 

The parliament which had been summoned met on 
the 5th of October. It is said, though without proof, 
that violence had been employed to procure a majori- 
ty favourable to the court ; but the court influence 
alone, added to the prejudices of a large number of 
the electors, the eagerness of the Catholics to ob- 
tain seats, and the fears or despondency of the Prot- 
estants, are fully sufficient to account for such a 
result. In open violation of the existing law, a sol- 
emn mass of the Holy Ghost was celebrated in Latin 
before both houses ; and when Taylor, bishop of Lin- 
coln, refused to kneel at it, he was thrust out of the 
house. The Archbishop of York had been committed 
to the Tower the day before, for " divers his offen- 
ces ;" and Harley, the only remaining Protestant pre- 
late, was not allowed to take his seat, because he was 
a married man. 

The most important measures passed in this parlia- 
ment were, an act abolishing every kind of treason 
not contained in the statute of 25 Edw. III., and all 
felonies that did not exist anterior to 1 Hen. VIII. ; 
one declaring the queen's legitimacy, and annulling 
the divorce pronounced by Cranmer ; and another re- 
pealing all the statutes of King Edward respecting 
religion. It was farther enacted, that, after the :20th. 
of December next ensuing, no service should be al- 
lowed but that in use at the death of King Henry. 
An act of attainder was also passed against those al- 
ready condemned for treason ; and against Lady Jane 
Grey, her husband, Lord Ambrose Dudley, and Arch- 



1553.] MARY AND HER SUITERS. 279 

bishop Cranmer. These four were arraigned at 
Guildhall on the 13th of November, and they all 
pleaded guilty. Cranmer, m-ged, probably, by the 
natural love of life, wrote to the queen a lull expla- 
nation of his conduct in the affair of altering the suc- 
cession, and seeking for mercy ; but he did not remind 
her, as he might have done, that she had been indebt- 
ed to him for safety in her father's time. No notice, 
however, was taken of his application, though it does 
not appear that Mary had, as yet, any decided inten- 
tion of taking his life. 

The marriage of the queen was a subject which had 
for some time engaged the attention of herself and 
her council. The plan of a match between her and 
Cardinal Pole, whom the papal dispensation could re- 
store to a secular condition, was again brought for- 
ward ; but the cardinal was now fifty-four years of 
age, his health was delicate, his habits were bookish 
and studious, and, as the queen seems to have desired 
a younger consort, that project was abandoned. The 
general opinion was, that she would marry young 
Courtenay, whom she had created Earl of Devonshire, 
and whose mother she had selected for her bedcham- 
ber companion, according to the usage of the age. 
Of foreign princes, the King of Denmark, the Infant 
of Portugal, and others, were spoken of ; but the Im- 
perial ambassador had his directions to hint to her, as 
from himself, a match with the Prince of Spain, who 
was now in his twenty-seventh year, and a widower. 
She did not seem to give any attention at the time, 
but the idea sank in her mind. Her affection for 
Courtenay was observed visibly to decline ; she be- 
gan to talk of his youth and inexperience ; and she 
felt, or affected, great horror at the excesses hito 
which he ran, and which were but too natural to a 
young man long secluded on his first acquisition of 
liberty. Presently came a letter from the emperor 
himself, gallantly regretting that age and infirmity 
prevented him from offering her his own hand, but 
proposing to her that of the Prince of Spain. Her 
pride was gratified by the prospect of so high an alii- 



280 MARY. [1554. 

ance ; her vanity, also, was flattered at her hand be- 
ing sought by a man eleven years her junior ; and she 
secretly resolved on the Spanish match. 

In the council, Norfolk, Arundel, and Paget were in 
favour of it, but Gardiner was opposed to it, as also 
were the bulk of the people. Catholics as well as Prot- 
estants ; and the French and Venetian ambassadors 
exerted themselves strenuously in favour of Courte- 
nay. On the 30th October, the commons voted an ad- 
dress to the queen, praying that she would select a 
husband out of the nobility of the realm. But she 
would not be thwarted, and said she would prove a 
match for all the cunning of the chancellor. She sent 
that same night for the imperial ambassador ; and, 
taking him into her oratory, knelt at the foot of the 
altar before the hallowed wafer, and, having recited 
the hymn " Veni, Creator Spiritus," called God to wit- 
ness that she took the Prince of Spain for her hus- 
band, and never would have any other. When the 
commons waited on her with the address, she told 
them that it was for her, not for them, to choose in 
this matter. 

On the 2d of January, 1554, four ambassadors ex- 
traordinary arrived from the emperor, and made a for- 
mal offer to her of the Prince of Spain. Gardiner, 
who had given up his opposition when he found it 
useless, had already arranged the terms with the res- 
ident ambassador Renard, and he took all possible 
precautions for the honour and independence of Eng- 
land. The appointment to all offices was to rest with 
the queen, and to be confined to natives ; Philip was 
to bind liimself by oath to maintain all orders of men 
in their rights and privileges ; he was not to take the 
queen abroad without her consent, nor any of her 
children without that of the nobility ; nor claim a right 
to the succession if he survived her ; nor take from 
the kingdom ships, ammunition, or any of the crown 
jewels ; nor engage the nation in the war then exist- 
ing between his father and France. 

Gardiner recommended this treaty with all his elo- 
quence to the lords of the council, and these were 



1554.] wyat's insurrection. 281 

willing auditors ; but to the people the Spanish match 
was exceedingly odious. Treaties and promises, they 
knew, were as easily broken as made; and, supported 
by foreign troops, Philip might easily trample on the 
constitution, and establish the abominable tribunal of 
the Inquisition. These murnuu-s soon ripened into 
conspiracies, which were secretly encouraged by No- 
ailles, the French ambassador. It was proposed to 
effect risings in various parts, to marry Courtenay to 
Elizabeth, and to establish them in Devonshire, where 
his family interest lay. The intention of the conspir- 
ators was to wait till the actual presence of Philip 
in the kingdom should have still farther excited the 
dissatisfaction of the people ; but Gardiner elicited 
the secret either from the fears or the simplicity of 
Courtenay; and, the very next day, .January 21st, 
finding that they werebetrayed, they resolved to have 
recourse to arms, unprepared as they were, before 
they could be arrested. The Duke of Suffolk and his 
brothers, and the lords John and Thomas Grey, went 
down to Warwickshire to raise his tenantry there ; 
Sir James Croft went to the borders of Wales, where 
his estates lay, and Sir Peter Carew and others to 
Devonshire. But all their efforts to excite the peo- 
ple proved abortive. The duke, after being defeated 
in a skirmish near Coventry by Lord Huntingdon, 
who was sent in pursuit of him, was betrayed by one 
of his own tenants and recommitted to the Tower; 
Croft was surprised and taken in his bed, before he 
could raise his tenantry ; and Carew fled to France on 
the approach of the E arl of Bedford. 

In Kent affairs assumed a more serious aspect. 
Sir Thomas Wyat, a man of great skill and courage, 
raised the standard of revolt at Maidstone on the 24th 
of Januaiy, and was instantly joined by fifteen hun- 
dred men, while five thousand more were ready to 
join him. He fixed his headquarters at the old castle 
of Rochester, and obtained cannon and ammunition 
from some ships that were lying in the river. The Duke 
of Norfolk, at the head of a part of the guards and 
five hundred Londoners, advanced to attack him ; but, 
A a2 



282 MARY. [1554. 

when orders were given to force the bridge, Bret, the 
commander of the Londoners, addressed his men, 
urging them not to fight against those who only sought 
to save them from the yoke of foreigners. A cry of 
" A Wyat ! a Wyat !" was raised, and Wyat came out 
at the head of his cavalry : Norfolk and his officers 
fled towards Gravesend, and Wyat soon reached Dept- 
ford at the head of fifteen thousand men. 

The council was now greatly alarmed for the per- 
sonal safety of the queen. This, hov/ever, is one of 
the few moments in her life in which we can admire 
her : she exhibited all the courage of her race, and 
resolved boldly to face the danger; and, when the 
lord-mayor had called a meeting of the citizens, she 
entered Guildhall, sceptre in hand, followed by her la- 
dies and officers of state, and addressed the assembly 
in such animated terms that the place resounded with 
acclamations. Twenty-five thousand of the citizens 
forthwith enrolled themselves for the protection of 
the city. 

Wyat in the mean time was at Southwark, with a 
force diminished to two thousand men : for his follow- 
ers slank away when they discovered that the Lon- 
doners would oppose them. Finding they were ex- 
posed to the guns of the Tower, he led his soldiers 
up the river to Kingston; and, having repaired the 
bridge, which had been broken, he crossed and pro- 
ceeded rapidly towards London, in the hope of sur- 
prising Ludgate before sunrise. But the carriage of 
one of his cannon happening to break, he most un- 
wisely halted for an hour to repair it. This gave time 
for information to be conveyed to the court. The 
ministers on their knees implored the queen to take 
refuge in the Tower, but she scorned the timid coun- 
sel. A force of ten thousand foot and fifteen hundred 
horse, under the Lords Pembroke and Clinton, was 
ready to oppose the rebels. At nine o'clock Wyat 
reached Hyde Park. Though exposed to the fire of 
the royal cannon at St. James's, he forced his way up 
Fleet-street with a (ew followers, and reached Lud- 
gate, where, being refused admittance, he turned and 



1554.] 



EXECUTION OF LADY JANE GREY. 283 



fought his way back to Temple Bar; but here, finding 
farther resistance hopeless, he surrendered to Sir 
Maurice Berkeley. His followers, in the mean time, 
had been entirely routed, one hundred of them being 
slain, and about four hundred made prisoners. 

If Mary, on a former occasion, had neglected the 
advice of the emperor and acted with lenity, she now 
resolved to do so no longer. The very day after the 
capture of Wyat, the 8th of February, she signed a 
warrant for the execution of " Guilford Dudley and 
his wife," as it was insultingly expressed. Fecken- 
ham, the former abbot of Westminster, was sent to 
endeavour to convert the Lady .lane to the Catholic 
faith, but ail his arguments failed. On the morning 
appointed for the execution, the 12th of February, 
Lord Guilford, whom Jane had refused to see, lest their 
feelings should overcome their fortitude, was led out 
and beheaded on Tower Hill in the presence of a great 
multitude of people. Jane from her window saw him 
go forth, and she afterward beheld his bleeding trunk 
as it was brought back in a cart. Her own execution 
was to take place within the precincts of the Tower ; 
either on account of her royal extraction, or more 
probably from fear of the effect which the sight of her 
youth and innocence might have on the minds of the 
spectators. She ascended the scaffold with a firm 
step; and then, addressing those present, she said 
that she was come there to die for the commission of 
an unlawful act, in taking what belonged to the queen ; 
but added that, as to the desire or procurement of it, 
she washed her hands in innocency ; and she called 
on them to bear witness that she died a true Chris- 
tian, and hoped for salvation only through the blood 
of Jesus. She then knelt down and repeated the fifty- 
first psalm in English. As she was placing herself 
before the block, she said to the executioner, " I pray 
you, despatch me quickly." She then asked him, 
" Will you take it off before I lay me down?" " No, 
madam," replied he. Her eyes being bandaged, she 
groped about for the block, and, not finding it, she be- 
came a little agitated, and said, " What shall I do ? 



284 MARY. [1554. 

where is it 1 where is it 1" Her head was then gui- 
ded to the right spot. She stretched forth her neck, 
saying, " Lord I into thy hands I commend my spirit," 
and one blow terminated her hfe.* 

Even the Romish historian remarks, that " it would 
perhaps have been to the honour of Mary" if she had 
abstained from this deed. A more humane and en- 
lightened historianf says, "The history of tyranny 
affords no example of a female of seventeen, by the 
command of a female and a relation, put to death for 
acquiescence in the injunction of a father, sanctioned 
by the concurrence of all that the kingdom could 
boast, of what was illustrious in nobility, or grave in 
law, or venerable in religion. The example is the 
more affecting, as it is that of a person who exhibited 
a matchless union of youth and beauty with genius, 
with learning, with virtue, with piety ; whose affec- 
tions were so warm, while her passions were so per- 
fectly subdued. It was a death sufficient to honour 
and dishonour an age."| 

The Duke of Suffolk was executed shortly after. 
He met with less commiseration than he would have 
done had he not been regarded as the chief cause of 
his admirable daughter's death. He was a weak, 
well-meaning man, and seems to have been actuated 
more by religious feeling than by ambition. His 

* The same day that Lady Jane Grey was executed, fifteen 
gallows' were erected in London, on which no less than fifty-two 
persons suffered. Hence it was called " Black Monday ;" and the 
12th of February was long remembered in England under that 
name, — Am. Ed. 

t Mackintosh. Dr. Lingard, in his last edition, omits the perAaps, 
and altogether expresses himself in very creditable terms. 

X Shortly before her deatli, this virtuous, beautiful, and highly 
accomplished lady composed a very affecting letter in Greek to 
her sister ; and, on the morning of her execution, she inscribed in 
ner note book three different sentences, in Greek, Latin, and Eng- 
lish, the last of which was in the following words : " If my fault 
deserved punishment, my youth, at least, and my imprudence 
were worthy of excuse. God and posterity will show me favour." 
"Another proof," remarks the historian, "of those accomplish- 
inents which astonished the learned of Europe, and admirable as 
a token that neither grief nor danger could ruffle her thoughts, 
nor lower the sublimity of tier highest sentiments."— ^m. Ed. 



1554.] DANGER OF ELIZABETH. 285 

brother, Lord Thomas Grey, a bolder man, shared his 
fate. Sir Nicholas Throgmorton was the most for- 
tunate of those who were brought to trial; for he 
proved to the satisfactionof the jury that his case did 
not come within the statute of Edward III., and they 
acquitted him. But the court had no idea of being 
balked of its prey by the consciences of jurors. They 
were all summoned before the council, committed to 
prison, and made to pay fines of from 1000 marks to 
2000/. each. This made other juries more phant, and 
Sir John Throgmorton and others were found guilty 
at once. Wyat was kept in reserve for some time, 
and efforts were made to prevail on him to accuse 
the Lady Ehzabeth and Courtenay. He partly yield- 
ed ; but what he had been induced to say being not 
deemed sufficient, he was sent to the scaffold. At his 
execution on the 1 1th of April, he declared, it is said, 
that, influenced by a promise of life, he had been in- 
duced to charge them falsely with a knowledge of his 
enterprise. 

According to the accounts of both the French and 
the Imperial ambassadors, upward of four hundred 
persons were hung. Our own writers would seem to 
limit this number to little more than sixty.* On the 
20th of February four hundred others were led, 
coupled together, and with halters round their necks, 
to the tiltyard, where the queen from her gallery pro- 
nounced their pardon, and the poor men went away 
shouting " God save Queen Mary!" 

But the great object of Mary and her council was 
to get the Lady Elizabeth into their toils, as the em- 
peror strongly urged her execution. In the begin- 
ning of December she had with difficulty obtained per- 

* These conflicting accounts may perhaps be reconciled. No- 
ailles, the French resident, writes, on the 12th of March, that 
above 400 had been hung, beside 50 captains and gentlemen ; Ke- 
nard, the imperial resident, on tbe 17th of February, that 200 men, 
taken at the fight at St. James's, had been executed, with their 
officers; and on tlie 24th, that 100 had suffered in Kent. Stow 
says, that, on the 14 th and 15th of February, about fifty of Wyat's 
faction were hanged. May not these latter have been the 50 of- 
ficers mentioned by the ambassadors t 



286 MARY. [1554. 

mission to retire to her house at Ashridge, near Berk- 
hampstead. It is very probable that she had received 
some intimation of the designs of the conspirators, 
and that, know^ing her hfe to be in constant danger 
from the bigotry of her sister, she may have secretly 
approved of them ; but there is no reason to suppose 
that she ever committed herself by openly consent- 
ing to them. Yet, whether the court had evidence 
against her or not, the very moment Wyat's insurrec- 
tion was suppressed, a body of five hundred cavalry 
was sent to Ashridge, whose commanders had orders 
to bring her up, "quick or dead." She was at this 
time very ih, and had retired to rest when they ar- 
rived at ten at night. She had requested not to be 
disturbed till morning; but the officers insisted on 
seeing her immediately, and followed her lady into 
her chamber. Two of the court physicians having 
reported that she might travel without danger to her 
life, next morning at nine o'clock she was placed in a 
litter, and her weakness was such that she did not 
reach London till the fifth day. As she passed along 
the streets she caused the litter to be opened, and ap- 
peared clad in white ; and though pale with disease, 
still displaying that air of majesty and dignity which 
nature had impressed on her features. She was kept 
for a fornight a close prisoner at her own residence, 
when it was determined to send her to the Tower. 
She wrote to her sister, asserting her innocence in 
the strongest terms, and claiming a personal inter- 
view on tile grounds of a promise which she had made 
her. Her letter, however, was unheeded ; and on 
Palm-Sunday she was led to a barge, in order to em- 
bark for the Tower. As she passed along she cast 
her eyes up to the windows, hoping to see her sister; 
but the queen was probably engaged at her devotions. 
She ventured to say that she wondered the nobility 
of the realm would suffer her to be led into captivity. 
She objected to landing at Traitors' Stairs, but one of 
the lords said she must not choose, and ofiered her his 
cloak, as it was raining. She flung it from her, and 
stepped out, saying, " Here lands as true a subject, 



1554.] IMPRISONMENT OF ELIZABETH. 287 

being a prisoner, as ever landed at these stairs. Be- 
fore thee, oh God ! I speak it, having no other friend 
but thee alone." The w^arders who came to receive 
her knelt down and prayed for her safety, for which 
they were dismissed the next day. She passed on, 
and sat down on a stone to rest herself. The lieu- 
tenant begged of her to come in out of the rain ; she 
rephed, "Better sitting here than in a worse place." 
She was then led to her apartment ; the doors were 
locked and bolted, and she remained there to medi- 
tate on the fate of her guiltless mother and the inno- 
cent Jane Grey ; a fate she had little doubt awaited 
herself. 

Mary, in whose bosom fanaticism had stifled all 
natural feeling, was prepared to shed her sister's 
blood ; the emperor, acting perhaps on the principles 
of his grandfather in the case of the Earl of Warwick, 
was urgent to have her executed if possible, and 
Arundel and Paget were for the same course; but 
Gardiner saw plainly that neither she nor Courtenay 
could be brought within the provisions of 25 Edw. 
III., then the only law of treason. It may be that 
motives of humanity had some influence on the chan- 
cellor's mind, but there is nothing to prove it. The 
queen feared to take on herself the responsibility of 
executing her sister contrary to law ; and the rigour 
of Elizabeth's confinement was so far relaxed that 
she was a Jowed to walk in a small garden within the 
Tower. On the 19th of May Sir Henry Bedingfield* 
came with one hundred soldiers and conveyed her to 
Richmond, and thence to Woodstock Castle, where 
she was confined as strictly as when in the Tower. 
Courtenay, who was a close prisoner in this fortress, 
was sent on the 22d to Fotheringay. 

* Elizabeth was treated with great rigour while under the cus- 
tody of this man; but. much to her honour, when she became 
queen, she repressed her resentment, and merely forbade his ap- 
pearance at court ; addressing him, at the same time, in these 
words; " God forgive you, as we do ; and if we have any person 
whom we would have hardly handled and straightly kept, then 
we will send for you." — Am. Ed. 



288 MARY. [1554. 

The queen, in the mean time, did not lie on a bed 
of roses. She was in a state of constant apprehen- 
sion ; distrusted those even who were about her ; and 
did not venture to move without a large body of 
guards. She is said to have had thoughts of ordering 
a general muster of the people, and then seizing their 
arms, and depositing them in the fortresses. At this 
time great numbers of the gentry, apprehensive of the 
persecution which they saw coming, sold their prop- 
erties and went over to France. 

Parliament assembled on the 4th of April; a sum 
of 400,000 crowns,* sent for the purpose by the emper- 
or, is said to have been employed to gain over the 
members ; and Mary, to quiet the apprehensions which 
might be felt about the church lands, resumed the title 
of supreme head of the church. The object proposed 
was to get a bill passed, enabling the queen to dis- 
pose of the crown and appoint a successor. But the 
parliament easily saw who the successor would be ; 
and that, in her blind folly and hatred of her sister 
the queen would make England but a province of the 
Spanish monarchy. All the arts of Gardiner there- 
fore failed : they would not even make it treason to 
compass the death of the queen's husband. Bills foi 
reviving the law of the Six Articles, and other stat- 
utes against heresy, were introduced to no purpose ; 
and the queen, finding the parliament not to answer 
her ends, dissolved it. 

If we may believe the malicious, but probably true 
statements of the French ambassador, the queen man- 
ifested her impatience for the arrival of her young hus- 
band in a very ridiculous manner. She frequently com- 
plained of his delay, regarding it as intentional ; and 
remarked that, though she brought him a kingdom as 
her dower, he had not favoured her with a single let- 
ter; and, as she viewed her ordinary and careworn 
features in her glass, she feared lest she might fail of 

* The amount is stated by Burnet at 1,200,000 crowns, or 
400,000 pounds in English money : and he says that this is " the 
first instance of any rumour of the corruption of parliamjent." — 
Am. Ed. 



1554.] RESTORATION OF POPERY. 289 

inspiring him with affection. At length, to her great 
joy, on the 19th of July, Philip landed at Southamp- 
ton. He was received by the lords of the council, 
and presented with the order of the Garter. After a 
short delay he rode to Winchester, where he was met 
by the anxious queen ; and, on the feast of St. James, 
the patron saint of Spain, the 25th, the marriage cer- 
emony was performed by Gardiner, bishop of that see. 
The royal pair remained there for some days, and 
then proceeded to Windsor. They visited the me- 
tropolis, where they were received with those very 
dubious marks of affection — shows and pageants ; but 
the character of neither was calculated to gain the 
popular favour. The queen was anxious to have her 
husband all to herself, while his Spanish pride con- 
tributed to fence him round with pomp and etiquette. 
But the object nearest the queen's heart was to 
bring her kingdom again into the bosom of the Romish 
church. As this could never be effected, so long as 
the nobility and gentry had to fear for their property 
in the church lands, the pope finally yielded to the rep- 
resentations of Gardiner, and signed a bull, empower- 
ing the legate to " give, alienate, and transfer" to the 
present possessors, all the property taken from the 
church in the two late reigns. It was now deemed 
advisable to convene a new parliament ; and, as the 
queen knew she might depend on the compliance of 
the degenerate or upstart nobles (who never dreamed 
of opposing the royal will, no matter who possessed 
the crown), her sole care was to obtain a pliant house 
of commons. Orders were therefore sent to the 
sheriffs, to have only those who adhered to the an- 
cient faith elected ; the Protestants were at the same 
time dispirited ; and the result was, that a house, con- 
taining probably not a single one of them, v/as return- 
ed. On the first of November the parhament was 
opened by a speech from the chancellor, in ♦.he pres- 
ence of the king and queen, " whose expcA^tation," 
he said, " it was, that they would accompUsh the re- 
union of the realm with the Catholic church.'' One 
of the first measures for this purpose was to intro- 

VOL. 11.— B B 



290 MARY. [1554. 

duce a bill for reversing the attainder of Cardinal Pole. 
It was passed, of course, without hesitation. 

The cardinal, in the mean time, was on his way to 
England ; and Lord Paget, Sir Edward Hastings, and 
Sir WiUiam Cecil had been sent to meet him at Brus- 
sels. At Dover he was received by the Bishop of Ely 
and LfOrd Montague ; and, as he advanced, the gentry 
of the country joined him on horseback. He entered 
a barge at Gravesend, where the Earl of Shrewsbury 
and the Bishop of Durham presented him Mith the act 
reversing his attainder ; and then, fixing his silver 
cross in the prow, he proceeded to Westminster. The 
chancellor received him as he landed ; the king at the 
palace gate, and the queen at the head of the staircase. 
After a short stay he retired to Lambeth, and occu- 
pied the archiepiscopal palace, which had been pre- 
pared for his abode. 

Four days after the legate returned to court, whither 
the lords and commons had been summoned. He 
thanked them for reversing his attainder, and assured 
them of his readiness to aid in restoring them to the 
unity of the church. They then retired, and the next 
day they unanimously voted a petition to the king and 
queen, expressing their sorrow for the defection of the 
realm, and hoping, through their mediation, to be again 
received into the bosom of the church. A gracious 
reply could not be withheld. On the following day 
the queen came and sat on her throne, the king on her 
left and the legate on her right. The chancellor read 
aloud the petition ; when the king and queen spoke to 
the cardinal, who arose, and, after addressing the as- 
sembly at some length, solemnly absolved them and 
the whole realm, and restored them to the holy 
church.* The members then rose and followed the 

* A part of the cardinal's address on this occasion was in these 
words : " I have come to inscribe you denizens of heaven, and to 
restore you to that Christian greatness which you had forfeited by 
renouncing your fealty [that is, to the pope} ; and to reap so great a 
blessing, it only remains that you should repeal the laws which 
have been enacted against the holy see, and by which you have 
cut yourselves off from the body of the faithful."— A/n. Ed. 



1554.] Mary's disappointment of issue. 291 

king and queen into the chapel, where the Te Deum 
was chanted. The next Sunday the legate made his 
public entrance into the city. Gardiner preached at 
St. Paul's cross, lamenting liis conduct in the time of 
Henry VIII., and exhorting all to follow his example, 
and repent and amend. 

The present parliament readily passed the bill 
against heresy, and others which had been rejected by 
the last. They also made it treason to compass or 
attempt the life of Philip during his union with the 
queen ; but they, even, would go no farther, refusing 
to consent so much as to his coronation. An act, 
however, was passed, giving him the guardianship of 
the queen's expected issue, " if it should happen to her 
otherwise than well." 

Mary actually fancied at this time that her ardent 
desire to become a mother was about to be gratified. 
The council wrote to Bonner, to order Te Deum to be 
sung in St. Paul's and the other churches. Prayers 
were composed for the occasion, one of which ran 
partly thus : " Give therefore unto thy servants Philip 
and Mary a male issue, which may sit in the seat of 
thy kingdom. Give unto our queen an infant, in fash- 
ion and body comely and beautiful, in wit notable and 
excellent." PubUc rejoicings were made, and the 
household of the prince (for so it was to be) was ar- 
ranged- But it proved to be mere illusion. 

To ingratiate himself with the nation, Philip caused 
those who were in confinement in the Tower for trea- 
son to be liberated. Through his means the same 
favour was extended to Courtenay. But his most 
popular act was obtaining pardon for the Princess 
Ehzabeth. As we have seen, she was now a prisoner 
at Woodstock ; and Sir Henry Bedingfield proved so 
rigorous a jailer, that it is said, hearing one day the 
blithe song of a milkmaid, she could not refrain from 
wishing that she were a milkmaid too, that she might 
carol thus gay and free from care. Her situation was 
a precarious one : as the daughter of Aime Boleyn, 
and as a Protestant in her heart, she was an object of 
aversion to the queen, who, according to Elizabeth's 



292 MARY. [1554. 

own declarations, actually thirsted for her blood. Gar- 
diner also is said to have been urgent for her execu- 
tion. He was accustomed, we are told, when the 
punishment of heretics was spoken of, to say, " We 
may shake off the leaves and lop the branches ; but if 
we do not destroy the root, the hope of heretics (i. e., 
the princess), we do nothing." And he was right ; for, 
had she been cut off, and had the Queen of Scots suc- 
ceeded, it is impossible to say what might have been 
the injury to the Reformation. The Spanish match 
alone saved Elizabeth ; for it then became the inter- 
est of one who had the power to do it to protect her. 
Nobler motives, too, may have actuated Philip : he 
may have shrunk from the idea of seeing the blood of 
a princess shed to gratify revenge and bigotry. Such 
motives operated, at least, on his Spanish attendants. 
Foxe tells us, that when Lord Paget said that the king 
would not have any quiet commonwealth in England 
unless her head were stricken from her shoulders, the 
Spaniards answered, " God forbid that their king and 
master should have that mind to consent to such a 
mischief;" and he adds, that they never ceased urging 
Philip till he had her released from prison. To this 
is to be added EUzabeth's extreme prudence, which 
prevented her enemies from gaining any advantage 
over her, and her feigning to be a Catholic. Some- 
thing also must be ascribed to the mild temper of 
Cardinal Pole, his gentlemanly feeling, his respect for 
royal and kindred blood, and his influence over the 
queen. 

Hatfield was now assigned to Elizabeth as a resi- 
dence, under the charge of Sir Thomas Pope, a gen- 
tleman of honour and humanity ; and she was fre- 
quently received at court. It was proposed to marry 
her to some foreign prince, but she steadfastly de- 
clined all the offers made to her. She spent her time 
chiefly in reading the classics with the learned Roger 
Ascham. 



1555.] MARY'S LETTER TO THE COUNCIL. 293 



CHAPTER VIII. 

MARY (continued). 

1555-1558. 

Proceedings against the Reformers.— Martyrdom of Rogers and 
Hooper.— Proceedings against Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer. — 
Martyrdom of the last two.— Death of Gardiner.— Martyrdom 
of Cranmer.-~Pole made Primaie. — Battle of St. Quintin. — 
Loss of Calais. — Death of the Queen and of the Cardinal. 

The year 1555 opened with dismal prospects for the 
Protestants. The queen had ah-eady, even before the 
parliament met, made this reply to the lords of the 
council in writing : " Touching the punishment of here- 
tics, methinketh it ought to be done without rashness, 
not leaving in the mean time to do justice to [i. e., ex- 
ecute] such as by learning would seem to deceive the 
simple ; and the rest so to be used, that the people 
might well perceive them not to be condemned with- 
out just occasion ; by which they shall both under- 
stand the truth, and beware not to do the like. And 
especially within London I would wish none to be 
burned without some of the council's presence, and 
both there and everywhere good sermons at the same 
time." On the 23d of January all the bishops went to 
Lambeth to receive the legate's blessing and direc- 
tions. Pole, whose natural temper was mild and 
whose character was virtuous, desired them to return 
to their sees and endeavour to win back their flocks 
by gentle methods. On the 25th (the Conversion of 
St. Paul) there was a solemn procession through Lon- 
don. First went one hundred and sixty priests, all in 
their copes ;* then came eight bishops, and lastly 
Bonner, bearing the host ; thanksgivings were offered 
for being reconciled again to the church; bonfires 

* The peculiar kind of cloak worn by the Romish priests in 
their religious ministrations. — Am. Ed. 
Bb2 



294 MARY. [1555. 

blazed throughout the night, and the day was appoint- 
ed to be annually observed, under the name of the 
Feast of Reconciliation. On the 28th, the chancellor, 
aided by the bishops Bonner, Tunstall, Thirlby, Al- 
drich, and other prelates, with the Duke of Norfolk 
and the lords Montague and Wharton, opened his court 
under the legatine authority for the trial of heretics 
at St. Mary Overy's in Southwark. 

The late bishops Hooper and Ferrar, and Rogers, 
Taylor, and some other divines, had been brought on 
the 22d before the chancellor and council, and had to 
undergo the ill language and browbeating of Gardiner ; 
but they persisted in firmly maintaining their princi- 
ples. Hooper and Rogers were now put on their trial. 
The former was charged with marrying, though a 
priest ; with maintaining that marriages may be le- 
gally dissolved for fornication and adultery, and that 
persons so released may marry again ; and with de- 
nying transubstantiation. He admitted the truth of 
all. Of the last he said, " I have done so, and I now 
affirm, that the very natural body of Christ is not re- 
ally and substantially present in the sacrament of the 
altar. I assert, moreover, that the mass is idolatrous, 
and the iniquity of the devil." 

Rogers was asked if he would accept the queen's 
mercy and be reconciled to the Catholic Church. He 
replied that he had never departed from that church, 
and that he would not purchase the queen's clemency 
by relapsing into anti-Christian doctrines. Gardiner 
charged him with insulting his sovereign. "The 
queen's majesty, God save her grace ! would have 
been well enough," said Rogers, " if it had not been 
for your counsels." "The queen went before me," 
said Gardiner; "it was her own motion." "I never 
can nor will believe it," was the reply. Bishop Al- 
drich then said, " We of the prelacy will bear witness 
to my lord chancellor in this." "Yea," rephed Ro- 
gers, " that I beheve well :" which reply caused a 
laugh among the by-standers. Gardiner now made a 
long speech ; after which he and his brethren rose 
and took off their caps, and he asked the fatal ques- 



1555.] BURNING OF ROGERS. 295' 

tion, " Do you believe that the body of the Lord is re- 
ally present in the sacrament V He answered that he 
did not. The passing of sentence was deferred till 
the next day, under the pretence of charity ; and the 
two prisoners were conducted to the Counter, in 
Southwark. The next morning they were brought 
up again ; and, as they refused to recant, they were 
condemned on the charges already mentioned. Ro- 
gers requested that his poor wife, being a stranger 
(she was a German), might come and speak with him 
while he yet lived. " She is not thy wife," said Gar- 
diner. " Yea, but she is, my lord," replied Rogers, 
"and hath been so these eighteen years." His re- 
quest was refused. The two prisoners were then 
committed to the sheriffs, with directions to keep 
them in the Clink till night, and then to transfer them 
to Newgate. In order that the city might be envel- 
oped in darkness, orders were given that the coster- 
mongers,* who then, as now, sat with candles at their 
stalls, should put them out ; but the people stood with 
lights at their doors, and greeted, prayed for, and ap- 
plauded the confessorsf as they passed. 

Some days after Bonner came to Newgate, and in 
the chapel of the prison performed the ceremony of 
degrading them : on which occasion he again rejected 
the request of Rogers to be allowed to see his wife. 
On the 4th of February Rogers was led forth to be 
burned at Smithfield. Immense crowds were assem- 
bled in the streets, who cheered and applauded him as 
he went along, repeating the fifty-first Psalm. Among 
them he beheld his wife and ten children, one of them 
an infant at the breast. At the stake a pardon was 
offered him if he would recant ; but he steadily refu- 

* Or costard-mongers, apple-sellers— costard being the name of a 
particular kind of apple. — Am. Ed. 

t This name was given to those who perilled their lives for the 
faith in the earliest periods of the Christian Church. In speaking 
of the persecutions in the first century, Mosheim says, that " thosp 
who were bold to confess Christ before the magistrates, and for 
his sake incurred the loss of health, or goods, or honours, were 
denominated confessors." — See Mosheim's Institutes of Eeclesias- 
tical History., i., 54, Harpers' edition.— Am. Ed. 



296 MARY. [1555. 

sed it, and died with constancy, England's first Prot- 
estant martyr. 

As we shall unhappily have more of these horrible 
autos-da-fe* to narrate, we will here describe the man- 
ner of them. A large stake or post was fixed in the 
ground, with a ledge or step to it, on which the vic- 
tim, standing stripped to his shirt, was placed, that 
he might be visible to all the spectators. He was 
fastened to the stake with chains, but his arms were 
left at liberty. Fagots and bundles of reeds were then 
piled around him, to which fire was set, and he was 
thus consumed. 

The next day, the 5th of February, Hooper, whom 
it was imprudently determined to burn in his own dio- 
cese, was taken to near St. Dunstan's, in Fleet-street, 
where he was committed to the charge of six men of 
the royal guard, who were to conduct him to Glouces- 
ter. Having eaten a hearty breakfast at the A.ngel 
Inn, St. Clement's, he mounted the horse prepared for 
him. To prevent his being recognised on the road, 
he was made to Avear a hood under his hat, which 
covered the greater part of his face ; and he was nev- 
er taken to any of the inns at which he had been in 
the habit of stopping. His coming being known, a 
large multitude of people met him within a mile of 
Gloucester, loudly lamenting his fate. His guards 
took him to a private house, and kindly allowed him 
to pass the next day in solitary devotion. Sir An- 
thony Kingston, one of his former hearers, and now 
one of those appointed to conduct his martyrdom, 
came in and saluted him ; but he was so absorbed in 
prayer that he did not hear him. Kingston burst into 
tears, and, when he at length drew his attention, ur- 
ged him to recant and save his life, but his arguments 
were of no avail ; and he retired, thanking God that 
he had known such a man, who had been the means 
of reclaiming him from sin. In the evening the may- 
or, sheriffs, and aldermen came to receive him from 

* A Portuguese expression signifying act of faith, but applied 
to those horrible ceremonies of burning heretics by order of the 
Inquisition in Spain and Portugal. — Am. Ed. 



1555.] BURNING OF HOOPER. 297 

his guards. They saluted him kindly, and were going 
to take him away to the city jail ; but the guards, 
whose hearts he had won on the journey, interceded, 
offering to be answerable for him if left for this last 
night in his present lodging, to which the magistrates 
consented. He retired to rest at five o'clock ; and, 
having slept soundly for some hours, arose and cm- 
ployed himself in fervent devotion. 

At nine the next morning, the 0th of Februaiy, the 
sheriffs came with armed men to conduct him to the 
pyre. He walked between them, leaning on a staff, 
on account of the sciatica which had come on him in 
prison. As it was market-day, about seven thousand 
people were assembled ; but strict orders from the 
council not to permit him to address the multitude 
had been received.* The stake had been fixed near 
a great elm-tree, in front of the cathedral where he 
was wont to preach. The spectators filled the place 
around, the houses, and the branches of the tree, and 
the priests of the college stood in the chamber over 
the gate. As soon as he arrived at the stake he knelt 
down and prayed ; when Lord Chandos, who presided 
at this.^nartyrdom, observing those who were nearest 
listening attentively to his prayers, ordered them to 
remove to a greater distance. A box containing his 
pardon was set before the victim. " If you love my 
soul, away with it !" said he, repeating the words. 
" There is no remedy, then," said Chandos ; " despatch, 
quickly," Hooper then threw off his gown, desiring 
the sheriffs to return it to his host, to whom it be- 
longed. He would fain have retained his hose and 
doublet ; but the sheriffs, whose perquisites they were 
to be, would not suffer him, " such was their greedi- 
ness." When he was fixed to the stake, one of his 
guards came and kindly fastened some bags of gun- 
powder about him to shorten his torments. The 
pyre was then inflamed; but most of the wood was 
green, and the wind blew the flames from him. At 

* The martyrs were usually enjoined not to speak. Foxe says 
that the council used to threaten to cut out their tongues if they 
did not pledge themselves to be silent. 



298 MARY. [1555 

length it blazed up ; but it sank again, leaving him all 
scorched ; and even the explosion of the powder did 
him little injury. His sufferings lasted for three quar- 
ters of an hour, during which he was seen to move 
his lips constantly in prayer, and to beat his breast, 
which he continued to do with one hand after his 
other arm had dropped off. At length his agonies 
came to their close.* 

Our limits do not allow us to enter into the interest- 
ing details of the martyrdom of Taylor, Saunders, 
Bradford, and others, who at this time sealed their 
testimony to the truth with their blood. Suffice it to 
say, that they all died with the utmost constancy, 
especially those who were married : thus nobly refu- 
ting the slanderous assertions of their adversaries, that 
sensual enjoyment was the bait which allured them to 
the Reformed creed. f 

It is remarkable, that, after the condemnation of 
Hooper and Rogers, the chancellor sat no more, but 
resigned the odious office to Bonner, of whom it has 
been truly said by Mackintosh, that he " seems to have 
been of so detestable a nature, that if there had been 
no persecution, he must have sought other means of 
venting his cruelty." What Gardiner's motive could 
have been it is not easy to say : perhaps, as small 

* The motives for sending Hooper to suffer at Gloucester un- 
doubtedly were, to shake his constancy, and to inspire with the 
greater terror those over whom he had the spiritual charge. Very 
different from this, however, was the result. His people were 
doubly confirmed in their faith by witnessing the heroic martyr- 
dom of their bishop, while it was his greatest consolation thus to 
die among them ; and Burnet states that he continued to exhort 
them till his tongue was so swollen with the intensity of his suf- 
ferings that he had no longer the power of utterance, and that his 
words were treasured up as being very precious in their memories. 
—Am. Ed. 

t " The married clergy," says Southey, " were observed to suf- 
fer with most alacrity. "They were bearing testimony to the va- 
lidity and sanctity of their marriage ; the honour of their wives 
and children was at stake ; the desire of leaving them an unsullied 
name and a virtuous example combined with a sense of religious 
duty ; and thus the heart derived strength from the very ties which, 
in other circumstances, might have weakened it."— Am. Ed. 



1555.] EMBASSY TO ROME. 299 

matters often produce great eflfects, it was the shame 
and annoyance caused by the constant references of 
his victims to his own writings and oaths that induced 
him to devolve the task on one untroubled either by 
shame or compunction. Certainly it was not human- 
ity that actuated him. Another notable circumstance 
is this : On the 10th of February, Alfonso de Castro, a 
Franciscan friar, and confessor to the king, preached 
a sermon, in which he condemned these sanguinary 
proceedings in very strong terms, as contrary both to 
the text and spirit of the Gospel. Whether the friar, 
in doing so, acted from conscience or by the direc- 
tions of Philip, cannot be ascertained. If the latter 
were the cause, it must have been that Philip, seeing 
the horror caused by these barbarous executions, and 
knowing that they would be laid to his charge, and 
that he would thus lose all chance of obtaining the 
government of England, took this mode of clearing 
himself. But the stratagem, if it was such, was of no 
avail : in a few weeks the piles were rekindled ; and 
every one knew that he had such influence over the 
queen, that he could have ended the persecution at his 
pleasure.* 

The possessors of the church lands, as we have 
seen, seem to have cared little about religion or con- 
science in comparison with their houses and manors ; 
but they now ran some risk of seeing their rights of 
possession disputed. A splendid embassy, headed by 
Lord Montague, Thirlby bishop of Ely, and Sir Ed- 
ward Karne, was sent to Rome to lay the submission 
of England before the papal throne. But, while they 
were on the road. Pope Pius died ; and his successor, 
Marcellus, an excellent man, followed him to the tomb 
within a few days after his elevation. The choice of 
the college now fell on the Cardinal Caraffa, a man 
hitherto distinguished for the austerity of his manners. 

* It would seem to be no more than justice here to state, that, 
according to the testimony of Protestant writers, many of the Ro- 
man Cathohc prelates protested strenuously against these barba- 
rous proceedings ; and the detestable Bonner was undoubtedly the 
principal instigator to these bloody acis.—Am. Ed. 



300 MARY. [1555. 

But, when invested with pontifical power under the 
name of Paul IV., he displayed his real character; 
and in pomp, arrogance, and nepotism he yielded to 
none of his predecessors. This haughty pontiff con- 
descended to forgive the English nation the sin of 
their defection, and confirmed the erection of Ireland 
into a kingdom ; but he spoke strongly of the guilt of 
detaining any portion of the church property, and 
seemed determined to insist on its restitution. His 
pride, however, yielded, for a time at least, to consid- 
erations of expediency. 

While England was thus brought again within the 
papal fold, and the tortures of the heretics proved how 
sincerely her government had imbibed the spirit of 
Rome, Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer lay in prison, 
expecting the fate which they knew awaited them. 
In the beginning of March in the preceding year they 
had been carried to Oxford, where they were required 
to dispute with a commission, presided over by Dr. 
Weston, on the subjects of the eucharist and the mass. 
This disputation lasted for three days. The prison- 
ers met with little but sophistry, insult, and derision ; 
and, as they steadfastly maintained their opinions, 
they were condemned as heretics, " themselves, their 
fautors" (supporters) " and patrons." A grand mass 
was celebrated on the following Sunday, to which 
succeeded a procession, Weston carrying the conse- 
crated wafer under a canopy. The commissioners 
then left Oxford ; Cranmer, being regarded probably 
as an attainted traitor, was confined in the common 
jail named Bocardo, while the other two prelates were 
kept in separate houses. 

As there was no law at that time by which deniers 
of the real presence could be burned, the government^ 
was obliged to wait till parliament might arm them 
with powers for the purpose. The prelates were 
therefore left in their prisons till the autumn of the 
following year, 1555, when Brookes, bishop of Glou- 
cester, came down by commission from the legate, 
as papal sub-delegate, attended by two civilians, Mar- 
tin and Storey, as the royal proctors. He opened his 



1555.] CRANMER, RIDLEY, AND LATIMER. 301 

commission on the 12th of September, in St. Mary's 
Church, seated on a scaffold ten feet high above the 
high altar. Cranmer was led in, habited in his doc- 
tor's dress : he took no notice of Brookes, but saluted 
the royal proctors. Brookes remarked to him that 
his present office entitled him to more respect. Cran- 
mer repHed that he meant no personal disrespect to 
him, but that he had solemnly sworn never to read- 
mit the Bishop of Rome's authority into the realm. 
Brookes then addressed him, charging him with here- 
sy, perjury, treason, and adultery. Martin followed in 
the same strain. Cranmer, being permitted to enter 
on his defence, knelt down and repeated the Lord's 
prayer. He then rose, and, having recited the creed, 
proceeded to deny the authority of the pope, and to 
inveigh against the practice of saying prayers in a 
foreign language. Speaking of his book on the eu- 
charist, he maintained that it was conformable to the 
decisions of the church for the first thousand years. 
" If from any doctor who wrote within that period," 
said he, " a passage can be brought proving the au- 
thorized prevalence of a behef in the corporeal pres- 
ence, I will give over." He objected to the witness- 
es who appeared against him, as being perjured men, 
who had previously sworn to renounce the pope. 
The next day he was cited to appear in person before 
the pope within eighty days, and was then sent back 
to prison. 

On the 30th of September Brookes sat again, aided 
by White of Lincoln and Holiman of Bristol. Rid- 
ley was brought before them. He took off his cap, 
but when the commission in the name of the pope 
and legate was read, he put it on again. For this he 
was remonstrated with ; and, on the whole, was treat- 
ed with civility. Five articles, two of which related 
to transubstantiation and the mass, were offered to 
him to subscribe. He refused, and repeated his pro- 
test against the authority of the court. Ridley was 
then removed, and Latimer was brought in. The ven- 
erable man was clad in a threadbare frieze gown, 
fastened around his hips by a common leathern gir- 

VoL. n.— C c 



302 MARY. [1555. 

die : he had a nightcap on his head, covered by a ker- 
chief, over v^hicli was a tradesman's cap, v^^ith flaps 
buttoned under his chin. His Testament was sus- 
pended from his girdle, and his spectacles from his 
neck ; and he held his hat in his hand. White treat- 
ed him with courtesy, and exhorted him to be recon- 
ciled to the church : Latimer, having obtained permis- 
sion to sit, proceeded to refute his arguments, quo- 
ting from a sermon lately pubUshedan instance of the 
manner in which Scripture was perverted in support 
of the doctrines of Rome. " What clipping of God's 
coin is this !" added he, in his usual manner. These 
v/ords occasioned a laugh, Avhich increased when it 
was intimated that Brookes himself was the preacher. 
"Was it yours, my lord ?" said Latimer: "indeed, I 
know not your lordship, neither did I ever see you 
before, neither yet see you now, through the brightness 
of the sun shining between you and me." The mer- 
riment in the assembly was redoubled at this simple 
address ; but Latimer, who felt its unsuitableness to 
the occasion, gravely said, " Why, my masters, this 
is no laughing matter ; 1 answer upon life and death. 
' Wo unto you that laugh now, for ye shall mourn and 
weep !' " After some farther conversation he was 
required to subscribe the five articles. He refused, 
protesting at the same time, like Ridley, against the 
authority of the court. 

The next morning Ridley was again brought before 
the court. He remained covered, but his cap was 
taken off by order of Bishop White. He gave in a 
written answer on the subject of the five articles ; 
and, having again refused to subscribe them, he was 
excommunicated as an impugner of the real presence, 
transubstantiation, and the sacrifice of the mass. 
" Old father Latimer" was next brought in, and was 
exhorted to return into the bosom of the Catholic 
Church ; whereupon he asserted that he never was out 
of it, and reprobated those who artfully confounded it 
Mdth the Romish Church, which last, he said, ought 
rather to be called diabolical. He then refused to 
subscribe, and was also excommunicated. 



1555.] RIDLEY AND LATIMER. 303 

Some days after the mockery of degradation was 
undergone by the two martyrs. When Ridley was 
forced to put on the Romish vestments, he said, al- 
luding to the indignities offered to Christ, " The disci- 
ple is not above his master, nor the servant above his 
Lord." After it was over he handed Brookes a sup- 
plication, which he requested him to present to the 
queen. It was on behalf of some tenants of the see 
of London, to whom he had given leases, but which 
Bonner refused to allow ; and likewise of his sister, 
whose husband he had placed in a situation of which 
Bonner had deprived him. At the name of his sister 
tears checked his utterance. " This is nature that 
moveth me," said he, "but I have now done." 

The following morning, the 16th of October, the 
martyrs were led from their prisons to the pyre, in 
the old city ditch, opposite Baliol College. As Ridley 
passed by Bocardo he looked np, hoping to catch a 
last view of Cranmer ; but he was at that moment en- 
gaged in an argument with De Soto, a Spanish Domin- 
ican, and some others. Cranmer afterward, it is 
said, went up to the roof of the prison, whence he had 
a view of the pyre ; and on his knees, with outspread 
hands, prayed to God to give them constancy of faith 
and hope in their agony. When the prisoners arrived 
at the fatal spot, they embraced each other, and Rid- 
ley said, "Be of good heart, brother, for God will 
either assuage the fury of the fire, or else strengthen 
us to abide it." They kissed their stakes, knelt and 
prayed, and then conversed together. Dr. Smyth (a 
man who always thought with those in power) then 
mounted a pulpit and preached from this text : 
" Though I give my body to be burned, and have not 
charity, it profiteth me nothing ;" and the sort of char- 
ity which his discourse contained may be easily con- 
jectured. When he had concluded, Ridley craved 
permission of Lord Williams of Thane, who presided, 
to make a reply. Permission was refused, and they 
were ordered to make ready for death. Ridley dis- 
tributed parts of his clothes and various little articles 
among his friends. When Latimer was stripped of 



304 MARY. [1555. 

his outer garments he appeared arrayed in a new 
shroud ; and he who had lately been enfeebled by age 
and infirmity now " stood bolt upright," says Foxe, 
" as comely a father as one might lightly behold." 
As soon as they were fastened to the stakes, Ridley's 
brother-in-law attached bags of gunpowder to them. 
A lighted fagot was then thrown at their feet. " Be 
of good comfort, Master Ridley," then said Latimer, 
"and play the man. We shall this day, by God's 
grace, kindle in England such a flame as I trust shall 
never be put out." He washed his hands, as it were, 
in the flames, and then stroked his face with them, 
crying, "Father of Heaven, receive my soul!" and 
speedily expired. Ridley's suff'erings were greatly 
protracted : the bottom of the pyre being composed 
of furze, with fagots heaped upon it, the flame be- 
neath was at first strong, and it burned his lower ex- 
tremities, but it then subsided. In agony he exclaim- 
ed, " Oh, for Christ's sake, let the fire come unto me !" 
His brother-in-law heaped on more fagots, and the 
victim became enveloped in a dense smoke, when he 
kept crying, " I cannot burn ; oh, let the fire come 
unto me !" Some of the fagots being then removed, 
the flame sprang up, the smoke cleared away, and it 
was seen that on one side his shirt was not even dis- 
coloured. He now turned himself eagerly to the 
flame, the gunpowder exploded, and he ceased to live. 
The arch-persecutor Gardiner soon followed his vic- 
tims to the tomb. He had of late been suff"ering from 
disease : on the 21st of October, however, when the 
parliament met, he addressed it, and displayed even 
more than his usual powers. But the effort was too 
much for him ; and he returned to his house very ill, 
where he died on the 12th of November. He is said 
to have shown some penitence ; for, on our Saviour's 
passion being read to him, when they came to Peter's 
denial, he bade them stop there, for, said he, " I have 
denied with Peter, I have gone out with Peter, but I . 
have not yet wept bitterly with Peter :" words, howev- 
er, somewhat ambiguous. He was, as his whole life 
shows, a worldly-minded, ambitious man, of unscru- 



1555.] AN UNPLIANT PARLIAMENT. 305 

pulous conscience, proud and arrogant, false and art- 
ful. The Reformers charged him with looseness and 
incontinence of living. Still he was an able states- 
man, and there is something not unworthy of respect 
in his conduct daring the late reign. 

The parliament, owing either to the want of Gardi- 
ner to manage it, or the horror caused by the late san- 
guinary proceedings, or aversion to the Spanish alli- 
ance, was much less compliant than was desired. 
The queen's zeal had already led her to give back to 
the church such portions of its lands as were in the 
possession of the crown ; but she wished to do more, 
and to restore the tenths, first-fruits, etc., which had 
been transferred from the pope to Henry VIII. by the 
act which made him supreme head of the church. 
This measure passed the lords without opposition; 
but the resistance to it in the commons was strenuous, 
the numbers being 193 for, and 126 against it. As a 
revenue of £60,000 ($288,000) a year was thus aban- 
doned, the connnons were naturally indignant, as be- 
ing called on to grant considerable supplies. " What 
justice is there," said they, " in taxing the subject to 
relieve the sovereign's necessities, when she refuses 
to avail herself of funds legally at her disposal]" 
The ministers were finally obliged to be content with 
much less than they liad originally demanded. The 
commons also refused to pass a bill of penalties 
against the Duchess of Suffolk, and those who had 
sought refuge abroad against persecution ; and an- 
other to disable certain persons from acting as jus- 
tices of peace : for it was plainly perceived that their 
aversion to the sanguinary measures of the govern- 
ment was their oftence. Parliament was dissolved 
on the 9th of December. 

When Philip found that there remained little or no 
hope of offspring from his marriage with the queen, 
and saw the utter inipossibility of his ever acquiring 
the affections of the nation, he readily complied with 
his father's desire that he should return to Flanders. 
He took his leave of the queen on the 4th of »Septem- 
ber, and on the 25th of the following month the em- 
Cc2 



306 MARY. [1555. 

peror made to him the famous resignation of his do- 
minions.* Mary, in the mean time, beguiled the tedi- 
um of his absence by persecuting her heretical sub- 
jects, and byre-establishing the friars in their houses. 
The Grey Friars were replaced at Greenwich, the 
Carthusians at Shene, and the Brigittinsf at Sion. 
Westminster again became an abbey, and the house 
of the Knights of St. John rose from its ruins. She 
doubtless, in her blind fanaticism, reckoned it as not 
her least merit in the sight of God, that, in the course 
of this year, not less than sixty-seven impugners of 
the real presence, of whom four were bishops and fif- 
teen were priests, had perished in the flames. 

Cranmer still lay in prison. He had written a very 
manly letter to the queen, wherein he stated his rea- 
sons for denying the pope's authority. To this, by 
her direction, Pole wrote a reply ; and it was in his 
usual vague, declamatory style, well seasoned with 
invective, but containing a memorable attestation of 
Cranmer's merciful exercise of his archiepiscopal au- 
thority. " Nor does it at all avail," says he, " to ex- 
cuse you, that you have slaughtered no one, but have 
been benign and gentle to all : for I hear this asserted 
by some. But these know not what they say ; nor 
do you, perhaps, know whether you have slain any 
one, because you did not enter Christ's fold with this 
design; nor, after you entered it, are conscious to 

♦ The love of power is so inherent in the human mind, that in- 
stances of its voluntary relinquishment are exceedingly rare. The 
case of Charles V., here referred to, is undoubtedly the most re- 
markable in history. He was Emperorof Germany, King of Spain 
and the Indies, of the Netherlands, Naples, and Hungary, Duke of 
Milan, &c.,and all these vast possessions he of his own free-will 
surrendered (reserving to himself nothing more than an annual 
pension of one hundred thousand ducats), and ended his days in a 
monastery in Spain. Another instance of the voluntary abdication 
of a throne was that of Christina, queen of Sweden, and daughter 
of the great Gustavus Adolphus, in the 17th century, and which 
was shortly after succeeded by that of John Casimir, of the crown 
of Poland. These are the most striking of the few examples of 
this kind mentioned in history. — Am. Ed. 

t So named from Brigitta, a Swedish lady, who was the 
founder of their order, called the order of St Saviour, in the 14th 
century, and who was canonized by the Romish church. — Am. Ed. 



1556.] 



DEGRADATION OP CRANMER. 307 



yourself of having sought the blood of any. " The pon- 
tiff, in the mean time, as soon as the eighty days 
were expired, collated Pole to the primacy, con- 
demned Cranmer, and issued a commission for his 
degradation. 

On the 14th of February, 1556, Bonner of London 
and Thirlby of Ely took their seats in the choir oi 
Christ Church, Oxford, as papal commissioners. Cran- 
mer was led in, and the commission was read, dwell- 
ing as usual on the papal impartiality, and stating 
what ample time had been given to the accused to 
proceed with his appeal and defence. " My lord," 
cried Cranmer, " what lies be these ! that I, being con- 
tinually in prison, and never suffered to have counsel 
or advocate at home, should procure witness and ap- 
point counsel at Rome. God must needs punish this 
open and shameless falsehood." When the commis- 
sion was read, the various Romish vestments, made 
of canvass by way of insult, were produced, and he 
was arrayed in them : a mock mitre was placed on 
his head, and a mock crozier in his hand. The brutal 
Bonner then began to scoff at him. "This is the 
man," cried he, "that hath despised the pope, and is 
now to be judged by him ! This is the man that hath 
pulled down so many churches, and is now come to 
be judged in a church ! This is the man that con- 
temned the blessed sacrament, and is now come to be 
condemned before that sacrament !" And so he ran 
on, though Thirlby kept pulling him by the sleeve to 
remind him of a promise he had made to treat the 
archbishop with respect. When they went to take 
the crozier from him, Cranmer held it fast, and drew 
from his sleeve an appeal to the next free general 
council. Thirlby, who was a man of gentle nature, 
and had been very intimate with the primate, shed 
floods of tears, declaring that he sat there against his 
will, and implored him to recant ; but the vulgar- 
minded Bonner, on the other hand, could not conceal 
his exultation at the degradation of his metropolitan. 
" Now you are no longer my lord," said he ; and he 
continued to speak of him as " this gentleman here." 



308 MARY. [1556"'. 

Craiimer was now civilly degraded, and might bo 
burned ; but his enemies would have him morally de- 
graded also, and every engine was therefore set at 
work to induce him to recant. The dean of Christ 
Church visited him, and invited him to the deanery. 
He was there trccited a\ ith the greatest courtesy, and 
was induced to play a match at hi* favourite game of 
bowls. The conversation, in which John de Villa 
Garcia, a Spanish friar, lately made professov of the- 
ology, bore a leading part, turned r/iuch on his condi- 
tion and prospects. He was assured that the queen 
felt favourably towards him : " but then," it was add- 
ed, " her majesty will have Cranmer a Catholic, or she 
will have no Cranmer at all." To these various 
temptations he at length yielded; and he certainly 
was induced to make a recantation of some kind, but 
the matter is involved in great obscurity. 

There are, in fact, not less than six difterent recan- 
tations preserved which Cranmer is said to have sub« 
scribed. C»f ch-ssc; the fifth alone contains an une- 
quivocal assent to the doctrines of popery ; and it hats 
been well asked, if he sigiied this,, why require him to 
sign the last : a vague, inflated document, evidently 
the composition of Pole 1 Most of these papers were, 
from the ambiguous t(n-ms employed in them (" Cath- 
olic churcli," for instance), such as might have been 
subscribed with some reserve of conscience ; but sure 
we are that Ridley and Latimer v/ould never have put 
their hafidy to them. The love of life, it is not to be 
denied, 'led Ctanmer into duplicity; and we have his 
own assertion that he had written, or signed papers 
containing " many things untrue." 

Aware of his duplicity, or determined that nothing 
should save him, the government had already sent 
down the writ for his execution ; but his fate was kept 
conceale<) from him. On the day before he was to die, 
Dr. Cole, who was to preach at his death, visited 
him. " Have you continued," said he, " in the Cath- 
olic faith wherein I left you f " By God's grace," 
replied Cranmer, still dissembling, " I shall be daily 
more confirmed in the Catholic faith." Early next 



1556.] RECANTATION OF CRANxMER. 309 

morning, the 21st of March, Cole came again, and 
asked if he had any money. Being answered in the 
negative, he gave him fifteen crowns. He exhorted 
him to constancy in the faith ; and Villa Garcia then 
came, and urged him to sign a seventh recantation, 
which he would be required to make in public. Cran- 
mer wrote out two copies of it, one for himself and 
another for the friar ; but he signed neither. Be- 
tween nine and ten o'clock he was led forth to be 
burned, in the place where his friends had suffered ; 
but, as the morning was wet, the sermon was to be 
preached in St. Mary's Church. He walked thither 
(now, it would seem, aware of his fate) between two 
friars, who mumbled psalms as they went ; and, as 
they entered the church, they sang the Nunc dimittisy 
which must have assured him that his time was come. 
He was placed on a platform opposite the pulpit ; 
" and when," says one who was present, " he had as- 
cended it, he kneeled down and prayed, weeping ten- 
derly, which moved a great number to tears, that had 
conceived an assured hope of his conversion and re- 
pentance." Cole then commenced his sermon, by as- 
signing reasons why, in the present case, a heretic, 
though penitent, should be burned ; and, when he had 
gone through with them, he added, " There are other 
reasons which have moved the queen and council to 
order the execution of the person here present ; but 
which are not meet and convenient for every man's 
understanding." He then exhorted Cranmer, and as- 
sured him that masses and dirges should be chanted 
for the repose of his soul. He concluded by calling 
on all present to pray for the prisoner. All knelt. 
" I think," says the writer, " there was never such a 
number so earnestly praying together : for they that 
hated him before now loved him for his conversion 
and hope of continuance ; and they that loved him be- 
fore could not suddenly hate him, having hope of his 
confession again of his fall. So love and hope in- 
creased devotion on every side." Cole then called on 
Cranmer to perform his promise, and to make a pro- 
fession of his faith, so that all might understand that 



310 MARY. [1556. 

he v/as a Catholic indeed. " I will do it," said Cran- 
mer, " and that with a good-will." 

He rose, put off his cap, and briefly addressed the 
people ; then drawing from his sleeve a written prayer, 
repeated it alond. Having concluded it, he knelt 
down and repeated the Lord's prayer, in which all 
joined, kneeling also. He then rose, and calmly and 
gravely addressed the people ; exhorting them "not 
to set overmuch by the false glosing world, to obey 
the king and queen, to love one another like brethren 
and sistren, and to give unto the poor." He then de- 
clared his belief in the creed, and in all things taught 
in the Old and New Testaments. " And now," said 
he, "1 am come to the great thing that troubleth my 
conscience more than any other thing that 1 ever said 
or did in my life ; and that is, the setting abroad of 
writings contrary to the trutli ; ^yhich here now I 
renoTmce and refuse, as things written with my 
hanfl, contrary to the truth which I thought in my 
heart, and writ for fear of death, and to save my life 
if might be ; and that is all such papers as I have 
written or sigiied since my degradation, wherein I 
have written many things untrue ; and forasmuch as 
my hand offended in writing contrary to my heart, my 
hand, ^Yhen 1 come to the fi-re, shall first be burned. 
And as for the pope, I refuse him as Christ's enemy 
and Antichrist, with all his false doctrine." At these 
words murmurs were heard. Lord Williams charged 
him with dissembling. " Alas ! my lord," said he, " 1 
have been a man that all my life loved plainness, and 
until this time never did I dissemble against the truth ; 
I am most sorry for this my faolt, but now is the time 
in which I most strip off all disguise." He would 
have spoken more, but Cole cried out, " Stop the her- 
etic's moutli, and take him away."" 

He was now hurried away to the stake. He strip- 
pe-d himself with haste and stood in his shirt ; and 
when he took off his cap his head appeared quite bald, 
his beard was white and flowing. He again declared 
"that he repented his recantation right sore ; where- 
\iDon the Lord Williams cried, 'Make short, make 



1556.] EXECUTION OF CRANMER. 311 

short!' Fire being now piit to him, he stretched out 
his right hand, thrust it into the flame, and held it there 
a good space before the fire came to any other part of 
his body, crying with a loud voice, ' This hand hath 
offended.' "* His sufferings were short, as the fire 
soon blazed fiercely ; and his heart was found entire 
amid the ashes, ^' His patience in the torment," adds 
this writer, " his courage in dying, if it had been for 
the glor)'^ of God, the weal of his country, or the tes- 
timony of tmth, as it was for a pernicious error, I 
could worthily have commended the example, and 
marked it with the fame of any father of ancient 
time. His death much grieved every man: his friends 
for love, his enemies for pity, strangers for a common 
kind of humanity, whereby we are bound to one an- 
other."! 

Thus terminated the mortal career of Thomas 
Cranmer, a man possessed of every virtue but firm- 
ness. His talents were not of a high order, and the 
modesty of his temper made him defer too implicitly 
to the opinions of others ; but we doubt if he ever, 
except in the matter of his recantation, acted against 
his conscience, though, as in the case of Joan Bocher, 
his conscience was not always well informed. His 
recantation we feel hardly inclined to regret, it afford- 
ed such occasion for the display of the dignity of vir- 
tue, and the ennobling influence of sincere repent- 
ance. " Let those," says a writer, whose beautiful 
reflections we love to quote,J " let those who require 
unbending virtue in the most tempestuous times con- 
demn the amiable and faulty primate : others, who 
are not so certain of their own steadiness, will con- 
sider his fate as perhaps the most memorable exam- 
ple in history of a soul which, though debased, is 

* Fox declares that Craniner held his hand in the flames until 
it was actually burned from his arm ; and that when it fell, there 
was a visible expression of satisfaction in his countenance, that 
the guilty instrument vyhich had recorded his recantation was the 
lirst to perish. — Am. Ed. 

t The extracts above are from the narrative of a Catholic who 
was present : it is given by Strype in his Life of Cranmer. 

4: Mackintosh, u., 270, Harjiers' edition. 



312 MARY. [1557. 

not depraved by an act of weakness, and preserves an 
heroic courage after the forfeiture of honour, its nat- 
ural spur, and, in general, its inseparable companion." 

On the very day of Cranmer's martyrdom, Pole, 
who had now at length taken priest's orders, said his 
first mass; and the next day he was consecrated 
Archbishop of Canterbury. Out of decorum, he had 
deferred the ceremony while Cranmer lived ; and 
surely the same feeling might have induced him to 
defer it a little longer. Many people applied to him 
the words of the prophet to Ahab concerning Naboth : 
" Hast thou killed, and also taken possession ?" Along 
with the primacy, Pole retained for some time the see 
of Winchester ; and when, at length, he gave it up to 
White, he made him covenant to pay him jClOOO an- 
nually out of it. Money is said to have been employ- 
ed at Rome to have tliis contract, which savoured of 
simony, allowed. The queen also gave him several 
estates belonging to the croAvn. The following year, 
however, the vindictive pontiff, who was Pole's per- 
sonal enemy, revoked his legatine commission, and 
proposed transferring it to old Friar Peto, who was 
now the queen's confessor, and whom he made a car- 
dinal for the purpose ; but Mary firmly supported 
Pole. The pope's messenger, with the hat and let- 
ters, was stopped at Calais, and the course of public 
events at this time impeded all farther proceedings. 

Philip, who was now at war with France, was anx- 
ious to obtain the aid of England, and for this pur- 
pose he came over in March, 1557. He assured the 
queen that it would be his last visit if he were refu- 
sed. Mary was, of course, most desirous of gratify- 
ing him ; but Pole and other members of the council 
were decidedly opposed to engaging England in a war 
for Spanish interests. Fortunately for Pliilip, just at 
this time Thomas Stafford, grandson to the last Duke 
of Buckingham, sailed with a small force from Dieppe, 
landed, seized the old castle of Scarborough, and put 
forth a proclamation, stating that he was come to de- 
liver the nation from its present thraldom to the Span- 
iards. But no one joined him ; and he was obliged to 



1558.] BATTLE OF ST. QUINTIN. 313 

surrender on the fourth day, April 28th, to the Earl 
of Westmoreland. He was brought up to London 
and beheaded, after being made to confess that the 
King of France had aided and encouraged him in his 
enteiprise. The resistance of the council, whom the 
queen had in vain menaced even with a dismissal, 
was now overcome, and war was declared against 
France. 

The queen, who, two years before, had had re- 
course to sundry unjust and violent modes of raising 
money, put some of them now again in practice, es- 
pecially that of privy seals : that is, letters addressed 
to persons of substance, requiring them to lend the 
sums specified in them to the crown. To victual a 
fleet, she seized all the corn that could be come at in 
Norfolk and Suffolk ; and having, by the aid of im- 
pressment, raised an army of ten thousand men, she 
sent it, under the Earl of Pembroke, to join that of 
Philip in the Low Countries. Li order to secure her- 
self against disturbances at home, she put into the 
Tower such of the gentry as she most suspected, 
and who were taken thither either by night or muf- 
fled up, that they might not be recognised. 

The Spanish army, when joined by the English 
auxiliaries, numbered forty thousand men ; and the 
Duke of Savoy, who commanded it, laid siege to the 
town of St. Quintin. The Constable Montmorency ad- 
vanced to its relief; but, failing in his attempts to 
throw succour into the town, on the 10th of August 
he was attacked in his retreat by the besieging army, 
and defeated, with a loss of three thousand men. 
The Enghsh fleet, in the mean time, made descents 
on various parts of the coast of France. The French, 
however, soon had ample revenge on the English 
queen for her share in the war. The Duke of Guise, 
who had been recalled from Italy, resolved to attempt 
a plan which had been suggested by the Admiral Co- 
ligni for surprising Calais. In the month of Decem- 
ber he assembled at Compeigne an army of twenty- 
five thousand men, with a large battering train ; and, 
while it was expected that he would attempt the re- 

VOL. II.— D D 



314 MARY. [1558. 

covery of St. Quintin, he suddenly marched for Calais, 
and on Newyear's Day, 1558, he was seen approach- 
ing that town. Calais was surrounded by marshes, 
impassable during the winter except by a dike de- 
fended by two castles, St. Agatha and Newnam- 
bridge. The French carried the former by a vigor- 
ous assault ; the latter also was soon obliged to sur- 
render; and the same fate attended another castle, 
named the Risbank, which guarded the entrance of 
tlie harbour. Batteries were now opened on the 
town and citadel ; and, on the 7th of January, the 
governor, Lord Wentworth, was obliged to capitulate. 
Guisnes also surrendered shortly after ; and thus, af- 
ter a possession of two hundred years, was lost the 
only remaining acquisition of Edward III. The loss 
was, in truth, a real benefit to England ; but neither 
the queen nor the people viewed it in that light. It 
was regarded as a stain on the national character, 
and it augmented the already great unpopularity of 
Mary. She was herself so affected, that, while on 
her deathbed, she said to her attendants, " When I am 
dead and opened, ye shall find Calais lying in my 
heart." 

Parliament, when assembled on the 20th of Janu- 
ary, made a liberal grant. A fleet was equipped, and 
sent to make an attempt on the port of Brest in Brit- 
tany ; but it failed to achieve its object. A small 
squadron of ten English ships, however, lent such 
valuable aid to Count Pigment, in his attack at Grave- 
lines on a French force which had invaded Flanders, 
as enabled him to give it a total overthrow. 

The inauspicious reign of Mary was now drawing 
to its close. She was suffering under disease ; she 
felt that she had lost the affections of even that por- 
tion of her people who agreed with her in religious 
sentiments, by her subserviency to the Spanish coun- 
cils, and by her arbitrary taxation ; while her cruelties 
had drawn on her the well-merited hatred of the 
Protestants. She had also the mournful conviction 
that she had exercised cruelty to little purpose, as 
the heresy had been hardly checked by it ; and she 



1558.] DEATH OF THE QUEEN AND POLE. 315 

knew that her successor, however she might now 
dissemble, secretly held the Reformed doctrines, 
and would probably re-estabhsh them. Finally, her 
husband, for whom she had forfeited the affection of 
her subjects, and for whom she felt such extravagant 
fondness, was neglectful, if not unkind. Her mind is 
also said to have been kept in a constant ferment 
through the paper war that was carried on against 
herself and her religion by the exiles at Geneva. 

While such was the state of her mind and body, 
she was attacked by the epidemic fever then preva- 
lent ; and, after languishing for three months, she 
breathed her last on the 17th of November, during 
the performance of mass in her chamber, in the forty- 
third year of her age. Cardinal Pole, who was ill of 
the same fever, died the following day. 

These two exalted personages are striking exam- 
ples of the evil influence of bigotry and superstition 
on the mind and heart. Mary was not devoid of vir- 
tuous dispositions or of mental endowments. On 
more than one occasion she had exhibited great en- 
ergy of character. She was constant and sincere in 
friendship, devout and charitable, and naturally not 
unjust.* But, unhappily, her religious opinions were 
gloomy and superstitious, and taught her that the of- 
fering of holocausts of those who dared to use the 
noblest faculties which the Deity had given them 
was an acceptable service to a Cod of mercy, and 
that promises made to such persons were not to be 
observed. Hence her character will evermore re- 
main in histoiy as that of a cruel, sanguinary bigot. 
Apart, however, from religion, the death of the inno- 
cent and amiable Jane Grey will always prove that 
the nature of Mary was harsh and unrelenting. 

* bi 1557, Lord Stourton. a zealous Catholic, seized two gen- 
tlemen named Hargil. father and son, with whom he was at vari- 
ance, and. with the aid of his servants, put tlicm privately to 
death in his own house, and buried them in a pit fifteen feet 
deep. The murder, however, came to light, and he and four of 
his servants were found guilty. All the interest made with the 
queen to save him was of no avail : she would only grant him the 
favour to be hung with a silken rope. 



316 MARY. [1558. 

The cardinal was a man of letters, polished in man- 
ners, and not without virtuous intentions ; generous, 
humane, and, to a certain extent, liberal in feeling : 
yet his false religious views and feelings made him a 
traitor to his sovereign and benefactor, a scurrilous 
libeller, and a persecutor even unto death of those 
who dissented from his creed : for, though it may be 
true that he did not urge on persecution, he always 
assented to it ; and, not a week before his death, five 
persons (the last of the victims whom his certificate 
had given over to the secular arm) were burned in his 
diocese. 

With the deaths of INIary, Pole, and Gardiner ended 
for ever the dominion of papacy in England. The 
cruelties perpetrated by them were even of advantage 
to the Reformed faith. The English nation is averse 
to cruelty ; and the sight of the constancy, and even 
exultation, with which the martyrs met their fate, 
while it caused pity and admiration for the sufferers, 
naturally inspired favour towards the religion which 
enabled men to die thus cheerfully ; and, at the same 
time, raised doubts as to the truth of a system which 
required the aid of the stake and fagot. Hence many 
who had been Catholics at the commencement of Ma- 
ry's reign, were Protestants at its close ; and hence 
her successor found so little difficulty in estabhshing 
the Reformed faith. The number who perished in the 
flames during the four years of persecution was little 
short of three hundred,* of whom more than a sixth 
were women, and some were children, and even babes. f 
There were five prelates and twenty-one of the other 
clergy among the victims. We find also eight gen- 
tlemen noticed ; but none of the nobles or knights 
who had obtained the spoil of the abbeys. 

* Speed, 274 ; Burnet, 284 ; Collins, 290. Lord Burleigh 
(Strype, Eccles. Mem., chap. Ixiv.) states the number who per- 
ished in this reign by imprisonments, torments, famine, and fire, 
at 400, of whom 290 were burned. 

t Lord Burleigh says that there were more than 60 women and 
40 children among the sufferers. 



APPENDIX. 



A, page 10. 

ADDRESSES OF THE INSURGENTS. 

The leaders of the insurgents adopted the practice usual in 
such cases of giving themselves fictitious names. Such were 
Jack Straw, Jack Mylner (Miller), Jack Carter, Jack Trueman, 
(kc, under which names they put forth addresses such as the fol- 
lowing (Knighton ap. Twisden, p. 2634) : 

" Jakke Mylner asket help to turne his mylne [mill] aright. 
He hath grounden smal smal ; the king's sone of heven he seal 
pay for alle. Loke thy mylne go aryght with the foure sayles and 
the post stand in stead fastnesse. With ryght and with myght, 
with skvl and with wylle, let myght help ryght, and skyl go be- 
fore wyl'le and ryght before myght, then goth oure mylne aryght. 
And if mvght go before ryght, and wylle before skylle, then is our 
mylne mys a dyght [dight amiss]." , :, r 

" Jakke Carter preys yowe alle that ye make a gode ende of 
that ye have begunnen, and doth wole and aye beliur and bettur, 
for al the even men heryth the day. For if the ende be wele then 
is alle wele. Lat Peres [Piers] the Plowman my brother dwelle 
at home and dyght us come, and 1 will go with yowe and help 
that y may to dyght youre mete and youre drynke that ye now 
fayle. Lokke that Hobbe robbyoure be wele chastysed for lesing 
of youre grace, for ye have gret nede to take God with yowe n\ 
alle youre dedes ; for nowe is tyine to be war [ware]." 

The following is one of Ball's addresses : 

" John Balle Seynte Marye prist greteth wele alle maner men, 
and byddes hem in the name of the Trinite, Fadur and Sone and 
Holy Gost, stond manlycke togedyr in trewthe, and helpeth 
trewthe and trewthe schal helpe yowe. Now regneth pride in 
pris, and covetise is holde wys ; and lecherye with outen shame, 
and glotonye with outen blame ; Envye regneth with tresone, and 
slouthe is take in grete sesone. God do bote, for now is tyme. 
Amen." 

B, page 37. 

RICHARD II. 

Mr. Tytler (History of Scotland, iii.) has revived an old story 

in Fordun and Wintoun of Richard II. having escaped from pri.son 

and bemg maintained for twenty years at the court of Scotland. 

There is no doubt that a person who pretended to be, or, rather, 

Dd 2 



318 APPENDIX. 

was made to personate that moharch, was countenanced there 
(as Warbeck was afterward), and probably with a view to annoy 
Henry, whose seizure of Prince James may perhaps thus be best 
explained. 

Sir .lames Mackintosh (History of England, i., 228, Harpers' 
edition) has briefly, hut, we think, completely confuted Mr. Tyt- 
ler. See also Mr. Amyot's Dissertations on this subject in the 
Archaeologia, vols, xxiii. and xxv. 

C, page 108. 

MURDER OP THE PRINCES BY RICHARD III. 

It is well known that the truth of this account of the murder of 
the princes has been questioned by Buck, Carte, Walpole, and 
Laing. Their arguments have, we think, been amply confuted 
by Hume and Lingard. We will here notice the principal ones, 
and the replies to them ; first stating the evidence for the murder. 

The historian of Croyland, who wrote in 1486, the year after 
Richard's death, says that when Buckingham and the others had 
entered into a confederacy to release the princes, " vulgatum est 
dictos Edwardi filios, quo genere violenti interiius ignoratur, de- 
cessisse in fata" (it is commonly reported that the reputed sons 
of Edward were cut off' by a violent death, the manner of which 
was unknown). He also says that their cause had been avenged 
in the battle of Bosworth ; and that Richard, not content with ob- 
taining his brother's treasures, destroyed his offspring {oppressit 
proles). This writer could not then have doubled of the murder. 
Rouse, who died in 1491, says that Richard imprisoned Edward 
and his brother closely, and within little more than two months 
killed them, but so secretly that " post paucissimis notum fuit qua 
morte martyrizaii sum" (it was known by very few by what 
death they suffiered). Andre, the historiographer of Henry Vjl., 
says, " ferro ferri jussit" (to be despatched with the sword). 
More, in 1513, gave the narrative in the text from the confession 
of the assassins. 

Buckingham and his friends must have been certain of the 
death of the princes, or they would never have offered the crown 
to Henry on condition of his marrying Elizabeth ; and what rea- 
son could Richard himself have for wishing to marry her if she 
were not now the representative of her father? 

In the year 1674, a chest containing bones, answering in size to 
those of the two princes, were found by the workmen who were 
taking away the staircase leading from the king's lodging to the 
Tower chapel. It was len feet under ground. 

Against all this it is alleged, that, for many years after, it was 
doubted if they were dead. " Some remain yet in doubt," says 
More, " whether they were in Richard's days destroyed or not." 
"In vulgus fama valeret," says Polydore Virgil, "filios Edwardi 
regis aliquo terravum secreto migrasse atque ibi superslites esse" 
(a report prevailed among the common people, that the sons of 



APPENDIX. 319 

King Edward had retired to some place of concealment, where 
ihey were still alive). Bacon also mentions the " rurnonrs and 
whisperings" of one of them at least being alive. The wonder, 
however, to any one versed in history, and who recollects the 
stories of Richard II., of Don Sebastian, and others, would be if 
such reports did not prevail. 

Walpole endeavours to show, from the rolls of parliament, that 
Edward V. was living in 1484, and that, therefore, the lale of his 
being put to death during Richard's progress in 1483 cannot be 
true ; but Lingard observes, that what he quotes is from the peti- 
tion presented at Baynard's castle, and only proves what was 
never doubted, that Edward was then alive. 

But the grand argument is this: There are in Rymer two in- 
struments, dated August 31, "teste rege apud VVesmonasterium." 
Richard therefore was in London on that day, and we know that 
he was crowned at York on September 8lh ; there was no time, 
then, for the passage of all the messengers to and from London, 
and the whole story in the text is a liciion. Lingard, however, 
shows that this only proves that the chancellor was at Westmin- 
ster. He gives as an instance : there are thirty-three writs of Ed- 
ward V. teste rege at W estminster April 23d, yet we know that he 
did not reach London till May 4th, and did not go to Westminster 
at all. 

D, page in. 

LETTER OP ELIZABETH. 

The original letter from Elizabeth to the Duke of Norfolk, we 
believe, no longer exists ; but Buck, who saw it in the cabinet of 
the Earl of Arundel, stales that in it she desired the duke " to be 
a mediator for her to the king in the behalf of the marriage pro- 
pounded between them, who was her only joy and maker in this 
world, and that she was his in heart and thought, withal insinua- 
ting that the better part of February was past, and that she feared 
ibe queen would never die." 

E, page 14L 

PERKIN WARBECK. 

The advocates of Perkin Warbeck say that, 1 . He was acknowl- 
edged by the kings of France and Scotland, and the Duchess of 
Burgundy ; 2. Henry never confronted him with the queen, her 
■nother and sisters ; 3. His accent was perfectly English ; 4. He 
was like the Duke of York ; 5. Henry never inquired into the cir- 
cumstances of the murder of the princes. 

To all this it is replied that, 1. The King of France acted from 
political motives, so most probably did the King of Scotland; the 
object of the Duchess of Burgundy, who had already favoured 
Simnel, probably was to overthrow Henry, and establish the 
claims of her nephew Warwick. 2. See above, p. 140. The royal 



320 APPENDIX. 

ladies had abundant opportunities of seeing him. 3 and 4 are 
mere assertions, without any proofs being offered. It is probable 
that Henry considered the fact of the death of the princes too well 
established to require any proof: or himself, as a Lancastrian, not 
called on to punish the domestic crimes of the house of York. 

Finally, few but those who were outlaws adhered to Warbeck ; 
and no gentleman ever joined him in his various invasions of Kng- 
latid. That Henry would never have left him at liberty if he 
thought him in the slightest degree dangerous, is proved by his 
very different treatment of the Earl of Warwick.* 

F, page 168. 

AUTHORITIES for the remainder of the reign of Henry VHI., 
the reigns of Edward VI., of Mary, Elizabeth, James 1., and 
Charles I. 

Rymer's Foedera, the Journals of the two Houses of Parliament, 
the Parliamentary History, the Statutes, the State Trials, the 
Hardwicke Papers, and Ellis's Original Letters, are general au- 
thorities for the period contained in the present volume. 
The authorities for particular portions of it are as follows: 
Burnet's History of the Reformation, and Strype's Ecclesiasti- 
cal Memorials, and his Lives of Cranmer and his successors, ex- 
tended through the reigns of Henry VHI. and his children. The 
chroniclers Halle, Speed, Stow, Grafton, and Holingshed, nar- 
rate the events of these reigns, which are also related by Bishop 
Godwin. Lord Herbert of Cherbury has written the history of 
the reign of Henry VIII., Hayward that of Edward VI,, and Cam- 
den that of Elizabeth. 

The various collections of the letters of princes, ministers, no- 
blemen, and others, preserved in public or private archives, furnish 
valuable materials for the history of the Tudor princes. Such 
are the State Papers (now in course "of publication), the Sidney- 
Papers, and the various collections of the Burghley and other Pa- 
pers, edited by Murdin, Haynes, Lodge, Digges, and others. 
The Scottish and Continental historians, and the despatches of 
the foreign ambassadors also supply materials.! 

* Warbeck was certainly a very diflerent person from Pimnel, and evin- 
ced by his actions that he possessed no inconsiderable energy and ge- 
nius. As to the validity of liis pretensions, historians are much divided in 
opinion. Tytler says that '• Carte, in his history of England, was the first 
who ventured to expre.ss his doubts in regard to the common notion of 
Warbeck's being an impostor ; and other reasons have been added by 
Guthrie, which strongly countenance the supposition, that this young man 
was really the Duke of York. Horace Walpole, in his Historic Doubts oa 
the reign of Richard III., has taken up the same side of the question," dec. 
Still the better received opinion seems to be, thai Warbeck was an impostor. 
—See Tyller's Universal History, iv., 170, Harpers' Family Library.— 
Am. Ed. 

t These commence with those of the Bishop of Bayonne in the reign of 
Henry VIII. A portion of those of LaMothe Fenelon have been lately 
publi^^hed by Mr. Charles Purton Cooper, who announces his intention of 
publishing all those of the French ambassadors during the 16iii century. 



APPENDIX. 321 

The reign of James I. has been written by Wilson, and the Me- 
morials of Secretary Winwood contain much important matter; 
W'eldun and Osborne furnish many particulars ; Lord Bacon is 
also an authority. The lately published Diary of Bishop Good- 
man notices the events of this and the preceding reign. Coke's 
Detection extends to the Revolution. 

The events of the important reign of Charles I. are to be found 
in Clarendon's History of the Rebellion and the Clarendon State 
Papers; VN hitelock's Memorials, Rushworth's, Nalson's, Sco- 
bel's, Husband's, and Thurloe's Collections; the StralToid and 
Sidney Papers, May's History of the Parliament, Dugdale's Short 
View, flobbes's Behemoth, Baillie's Letters, Ludlow's Memoirs, 
the Life of Colonel Hutchinson, the narratives of Berkeley, Ash- 
burnham, Fairfax, Herbert, and others; Leicester's Journal, 
Slingsby's Diary, Baxter's Lite and Times, Neal's History of ihe 
Puritans, Mede's Letters, Hacket's Life of Williams, and Heylin's 
Life of Laud, and this last prelate's Life and Troubles ; Carte's 
Life of Ormond, &c., 6:c. 

The histories of Rapin, Carte, Echard, Oldmixon, and Kennet, 
though not written till :he eighteenth century, are also authorities 
for these tunes, as the writers of them had sometimes the means 
of acquiring information which no longer exist. New sources for 
the history of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are, however, 
springing up every day, by the publication of letters and docu- 
ments contained in the State Paper Oflice, the British Museum, 
and other public repositories, and in the libraries of private families. 

G, page 173. 

QUEEN CATHARINE. 

"Catharine," says Sanders, " used to rise at midnight, to jom 
in the nocturnal prayers of the religious. She dressed herself as 
quickly as possible at five in the morning, saying frequently that 
she lost no tune but only this in which she attired herself She 
wore under her royal dress the habit of St Francis, to whose 
third order she had ascribed herself (jtpse ascnpserat). She fasted 
every Friday and Saturday ; on all the vigils of the blessed Mary 
she lived on nothing but bread and water. On Wednesdays and 
Fridays she confessed her sins to a priest. She also received the 
Eucharist on Sundays ; she recited daily the Office of the Blessed 
Virgin ; she spent six hours of the morning in the church engaged 
in holy offices. From dinner-time, for about two hours, she read 
the lives of the saints, her maids standing by ; then going back to 
the church, she remained there till about the time of supper, which 
she took most sparingly. She always prayed on her bended knees, 
without a cushion or anything else between her and the pave- 
ment. Who now can wonder," asks this writer, '' that so holy a 
woman was to be tried by some greater fire of tribulation, that the 
odour of her virtues might be more easily dilfused through the 
whole Christian world .'" 



322 APPENDIX. 



H, page 200. 

SIR THOMAS MORE. 

Of the superstition of this eminent man the following proofs 
occur : 

Erasmus notices his tendency that way. He always wore a 
hair shirt next his skin, and "he used sometimes," says Koper, 
"to punish his body with whips, the cords knotted. When he 
■was chancellor, ihe Duke of Norfolk coming one day to dine with 
him at Chelsea, found him at church with a surplice on him, sing- 
ing in the quire. " My lord chancellor," cried the duke, " a par- 
ish clerk, a parish clerk— you dishonour the king and his office." 
" Nay," replied he, " your grace may not think that the king your 
master and mine will with me, for serving of God his master^ be 
offended, or thereby count his office dishonoured." It was a mat- 
ter of the greatest comfort that he was to die on the eve of St. 
Thomas a Heckel, his patron saint. " 1 comber you, good Mar- 
garet, much," writes he to his daughter, " but I would be sorry 
if it should be any longer than to-morrow. For it is St. Thomas's 
even, and the Utas (Octave) of St. Peter; and therefore to-mor- 
row long I to go to God. It were a day very meet and convenient 
for me." 

I, page 205. 

ANNE BOLEYN's LETTER TO THE KINO. 

The MS. from which this copy is taken was partly destroyed 
by fire in 1731. The parts supplied are in itahcs. 

Sir, 
Your grace's displeasure and my imprisonment are things soe 
strange unto me, as what to wrighte or what to excuse I am al- 
iogether ignorant. Wheras you send unto me (willing me to con 
fesse a truth, and soe to obteyne your favour) by such an whome 
you know to be mine antient professed enemy, I noe sooner re- 
ceived this message by him than I rightly conceaved your mean- 
ing ; and if, as you say, confessing a truth indeed may procure my 
saftie, 1 shall wse all willingnesse and dutie to perform your com- 
mand. Hut let not your grace ever imagine that your poore wife 
will ever be brought to acknowledge a fault, where not soe much as 
a thought ever proceeded. And to speak a truth, never a prince 
had wife more loyall in all duty, and in all true atlfection, than you 
have ever found in Anne Bolen, with which name and place I 
could willingly have coDiented myself, if God and your grace's 
pleasure had soe bene pleased. Neither did I at any time soe farre 
forgett myselfe in my exaltation or receaved qiieenshipp, but that I 
alwaycs looked for such an alteration as now 1 finde ; for the ground 
of my preferment being on noe surer foundation than your grace's 
fancye, the least alteration was fitt and sufficient (I knowe) to draw 
that fayicye to some other subjecte. You have chosen me from a 
low estate' to be your queene and companion farre beyond my desert 



APPENDIX. 323 

or desire ; if then you found me worthy of such honour, good 
your grace, let not any light fancye or bade counsell of my enemies 
withdraw your princely favour from me; neither let that stayne, 
that unworthy stayne of a disloyall heart towards yoar good grace, 
ever cast so/oule a blott on your most dutifuU wife, and the infant 
princesse your daughter. Trye me, goode king, but let me have a 
lawfull <ryall ; and let not my sworne enemyes sir as my accu- 
sers and judges ; yee, let me receave an ope?i tryall, for my truth 
sh&Vi fear noe open shames. Then shall you see either mine inno- 
cencye cleered, your suspition and conscience satisfied, the igvomin- 
ye and slander of the world stopped, or my guilt openly diclaied. 
JSoe that whatsoever God or you ntay determine of, your grace may 
be freed from an open censure, and mine offence being soe lawfully 
proved, your grace is at liberty, both before God and man, not only to 
execute worthy punishment on me as an unfaythfuU wife, but to fol- 
low your affection already settled on that parUe, for whose sake I am 
now as 1 am ; whose name / could, some good while since, have pointed 
unto your grace, being not ignorant of my suspition therein. 

But, if you have already determined of me, and that not only my 
death, but an infamous slander must bring you the joying of your de- 
sired happiness, then 1 desire of God that he will pardon your 
great smne herein, and likewise my enemyes the mstruments 
thereof, and that he will not call you to a straight accompt for 
your unprincely and cruell usage of me at his general! judgement- 
seat, where both you and myf=elfe must shortly appeare, and in 
whose just judgement 1 doubt not, whatsoever the worlde may 
think of me, mme innocencye shall be openly knowene and suf- 
ficiently cleared. My last and only request shall be, that myselfe 
may only bear the burthen of your grace's displeasure, and that it 
may not touch the innocent souls of those poor gentlemen, whome, 
as I understand, are likewise in straight imprisonment for my sake. 
Jf I ever have founde favoure in your sight, if ever the nafme of 
Anne Bulen have ben pleasing in your eares, then let me obtain 
this request ; and soe I will leave to troble your grace any far- 
ther. With mine earnest prayer to the Trinitie to have your grace 
in his good keeping, and to direct you in all your actions, from my 
dolefull prison in the Tower, the 6th of Maye. 

Your most loyall and ever faithful/ wife, 

ANNE liVLEN. 

The Ladye 

to the kinge he ... . 

of the Towe 



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